May 2012

The Graph API for achievements allows game developers to publish user achievements in their game to provide more meaningful and relevant stories.

The Graph API for achievements allows game developers to publish user achievements in their game to provide more meaningful and relevant stories.

@PopSci: PopSci #longreads: Jack Hitt says the next big breakthrough in synthetic biology might come from an amateur scientist: http://t.co/qxYuCT2t

@groovecoder: OH @lmorchard "Don't ask the humans; ask the data." cc @jmswisher @sheppy @Teoli2003 @DavidBruant @JeremiePat @floscholz

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has voiced a renewed desire to see the consumer electronics giant open its architecture to the masses, allowing savvy users to expand and add to their products at will.

@flipgaming: New Grads Toss Their Caps While Their School Burns, Baby, Burns http://t.co/INOSGrnf

@GamesBeat: Hardcore gamers demand hardcore fashion. http://t.co/nPlNkTbz

Now here’s the trick. Once you’ve got a good candidate, take a sneak-peak at what’s inside. Discreetly flick the dry stem off the fruit.

Takes a snapshot with your Mac's built-in iSight/FaceTime webcam (or any working webcam on Linux) every time you git commit code, and archives a lolcat style image with it.

@TheREALjm3: @sferik stop tweeting at me from hawaii you meanie

Drag + Drop, Client-side, Animated GIF Creator

Drag + Drop, Client-side, Animated GIF Creator

Need to keep this in my pocket for future reference.

Since 2005, the Library of Congress has hosted annual meetings with digital preservation partners, collaborators and others committed to keeping a record of our time. The meetings have served as a forum for sharing information about concepts, tools and best practices, and have also helped promote a vibrant community of practice. We are pleased to announce this year’s meeting, DigitalPreservation 2012.

Since 2005, the Library of Congress has hosted annual meetings with digital preservation partners, collaborators and others committed to keeping a record of our time. The meetings have served as a forum for sharing information about concepts, tools and best practices, and have also helped promote a vibrant community of practice. We are pleased to announce this year’s meeting, DigitalPreservation 2012.

Digital Preservation 2012 is the annual meeting of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program and the National Digital Stewardship Alliance. DP 2012 brings together the brightest minds exploring solutions to the challenges of stewarding digital content over the long-term. The theme of the meeting is access to digital content under stewardship.

"Old farts" are often excluded from that culture, not because we're lousy coders but because we won't put up with that shit. We have lives, we have families, we have other things that are important to us. We're not about to sleep at our desks and trade watching our kids grow up for the promise of striking it rich. Especially when the people who really strike it rich aren't the ones writing code.

I included the image of the Nerf dart next to the Jolt EX-1 in the above picture so you can see the size of this new gun. It's tiny. It fits in your hand, it's easy to conceal, and you can whip it out quickly and shoot someone in the face with it. I would not suggest doing so in a social situation unless you are much larger than the victim. This is why I chose, once again, to test the gun on my children. The surprising thing about the gun, which sells for around under $10, is that it's powerful. Read the comments on this post

I included the image of the Nerf dart next to the Jolt EX-1 in the above picture so you can see the size of this new gun. It's tiny. It fits in your hand, it's easy to conceal, and you can whip it out quickly and shoot someone in the face with it. I would not suggest doing so in a social situation unless you are much larger than the victim. This is why I chose, once again, to test the gun on my children. The surprising thing about the gun, which sells for around under $10, is that it's powerful. Read the comments on this post

Ventrilo Server : moonbreakers.darkstarvent.com Port 3997 this is a free download that allows you to talk (or just listen) to us "cool" people while you play the game. this can help organize better strategy with your teammates and ask some tactical questions of the Praetorian (really good pilots or the people you love to hate).

Ventrilo Server : moonbreakers.darkstarvent.com Port 3997 this is a free download that allows you to talk (or just listen) to us "cool" people while you play the game. this can help organize better strategy with your teammates and ask some tactical questions of the Praetorian (really good pilots or the people you love to hate).

Favorite: @, by formalplay

When you experience a vague sense of inequity or deprivation but don’t have a template for whether your expectations are fair, drink.

When you experience a vague sense of inequity or deprivation but don’t have a template for whether your expectations are fair, drink.

Speaking on NBC's "Today" show Thursday, Sakia David said she wants her baby sitter punished for allowing a male friend to put the child in the machine.

Speaking on NBC's "Today" show Thursday, Sakia David said she wants her baby sitter punished for allowing a male friend to put the child in the machine.

Found these tracks; they're not mine at all. It says CC attribution license, but I don't even actually care about that

Found these tracks; they're not mine at all. It says CC attribution license, but I don't even actually care about that

Found these tracks; they're not mine at all. It says CC attribution license, but I don't even actually care about that

Easily mix asynchronous and synchronous programming styles in node.js

@aadl: MT @lmorchard: "here are some things I learned from @textfiles at @aadl: http://t.co/Fe4N41LF" Now THAT'S an informative event! Thanks Les!

a side-by-side reference sheet

Favorite: First Contact, by CMGW Photography Loved the look here

First off, my intention is not to fight you on this. You have more cars than I have dollars, and so I know I don’t stand a chance legally, and on top of that, I don’t really understand how legal stuff works. But the truth is you kind of fucked up my shit and I need to talk to you about it.

First off, my intention is not to fight you on this. You have more cars than I have dollars, and so I know I don’t stand a chance legally, and on top of that, I don’t really understand how legal stuff works. But the truth is you kind of fucked up my shit and I need to talk to you about it.

The ArchiveTeam Warrior is a virtual archiving appliance. You can run it to help with the ArchiveTeam archiving efforts.

@textfiles: An attendee of last night's talk made a link page of everything I touched on. http://t.co/rzcYJjgL ... I am friggin' ECLECTIC

Archive Team is a loose collective of rogue archivists, programmers, writers and loudmouths dedicated to saving our digital heritage. Since 2009 this variant force of nature has caught wind of shutdowns, shutoffs, mergers, and plain old deletions - and done our best to save the history before it's lost forever. Along the way, we've gotten attention, resistance, press and discussion, but most importantly, we've gotten the message out: IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY.

Both URLs load and use about 200MB in chrome. In nightly they use >1GB and the browser hangs, not rendering any frames.

I want to help port the MESS and MAME emulators to Javascript.

Mirror of the MESS codebase, plus efforts to port MESS to Javascript

You are looking at a javascript version of the MESS emulator, a program that emulates hundreds of machine types and will, eventually, be capable of running most known computer software programs. What you see here (and if you don't see anything, we apologize) is a Colecovision emulator running the homebrew Colecovision cartridge "Cosmo Fighter 2", in demo mode.

You are looking at a javascript version of the MESS emulator, a program that emulates hundreds of machine types and will, eventually, be capable of running most known computer software programs. What you see here (and if you don't see anything, we apologize) is a Colecovision emulator running the homebrew Colecovision cartridge "Cosmo Fighter 2", in demo mode.

The 11th Annual Music And Gaming Festival 4 Days of Non-Stop Games and Concerts

The 11th Annual Music And Gaming Festival 4 Days of Non-Stop Games and Concerts

6 years ago, John Gilmore (yes, That John Gilmore) saw that IUMA was in a zombie state and very unlikely to ever get out of the ICU. So he grabbed a copy of all he could – which wasn’t all of it, of course, but it was a hell of a lot of it. He stored them on some backup tapes, and as the site went down, disappeared, and faded into the mists of memory, he looked for a chance to have someone get a copy up somewhere. I was that person.

The Internet Underground Music Archive was better known by the acronym IUMA. The IUMA was started in 1993 by three students at the University of California at Santa Cruz: Jeff Patterson, Jon Luini and Rob Lord. The three men worked together to create an online music archive that would help musicians and bands who weren't signed by a major label. The site allowed these unsigned artists to upload files and send them to fans. The site also enabled the artists the opportunity to talk with their fans. The IUMA was first part of the Usenet newsgroups.

Founded in 1985, the DNA Lounge (Dance Not Art) has provided live music acts as well as DJs and special events to the San Francisco area, and is one of the longer-surviving clubs of its kind. In 1999, the club was purchased by Jamie Zawinski, remodeled extensively, and re-opened in 2001. Since that time, it has hosted thousands of performances, all of which have been broadcast over the web and available for a short time after the event. These broadcasts have been downloaded over the last decade and compiled into this archive of shows, matched with information from the DNA Lounge website.

The development version of Wget can write its results to a WARC (Web ARChive file format) file, just like Heritrix and other archiving tools. With the WARC format, it's possible to save both the request and the response headers. It also provides a clean way to store redirects and 404 responses.

git-annex allows managing files with git, without checking the file contents into git. While that may seem paradoxical, it is useful when dealing with files larger than git can currently easily handle, whether due to limitations in memory, time, or disk space.

git-annex allows managing files with git, without checking the file contents into git. While that may seem paradoxical, it is useful when dealing with files larger than git can currently easily handle, whether due to limitations in memory, time, or disk space.

A fluoroscope was a metal construction covered in timber approximately 4 feet (1.2 m) high in the shape of short column, with a ledge with an opening where the child (or the adult customer) would then place his or her feet in the opening provided and while remaining in a standing position, look through a viewing porthole at the top of the fluoroscope down at the x-ray view of the feet and shoes. Two other viewing portholes on either side enabled the parent and a sales assistant to observe the child's toes being wiggled to show how much room for the toes there was inside the shoe. The bones of the feet were clearly visible, as was the outline of the shoe, including the stitching around the edges. The exposure time would have been around 15 seconds.

At the Wagah border post that separates northern India from eastern Pakistan, the distance between the throngs of Muslims that gather on the Pakistan side and the mostly Hindus and Sikhs congregated on the Indian side is but a few feet. But it feels like miles for those old enough to remember the days when they could walk from one side to the other without ever leaving India. And although the nightly border guard ceremony here may be grounded in a bloody history of partition conflict, for locals and the occasional tourist it remains a symbol of a peaceful back-and-forth between two neighbors who have fought each other in three wars. And for Pakistan, the changing of the flag ceremony represents a rare refuge of decorum amid the swirling chaos that engulfs their country.

The Wagah (Punjabi: ਵਗਾਹ) border closing 'lowering of the flags' ceremony is a daily military practice that the security forces of India (Border Security Force) and Pakistan (Pakistan Rangers) have jointly followed since 1959.[1] This ceremony takes place every evening before sunset at the Wagah border, which as part of the Grand Trunk Road was the only road link between these two countries before the opening of the Aman Setu in Kashmir in 1999. The ceremony starts with a blustering parade by the soldiers from both the sides, and ends up in the perfectly coordinated lowering of the two nations' flags. It is called the beating retreat border ceremony on the international level. One infantryman (Jawan) stands at attention on each side of the gate. As the sun sets, the iron gates at the border are opened and the two flags are lowered simultaneously. The flags are folded and the ceremony ends with a retreat that involves a brusque handshake between soldiers from either side, followed by the closing of the gates again. The spectacle of the ceremony attracts many visitors from both sides of the border, as well as international tourists.

Cheevos for Firefox is an addon for Firefox that makes learning about different parts of the browser fun, as well as giving you the opportunity to brag to your friends about your pro-level web surfing.

Cheevos for Firefox is an addon for Firefox that makes learning about different parts of the browser fun, as well as giving you the opportunity to brag to your friends about your pro-level web surfing.

The WARC (Web ARChive) format specifies a method for combining multiple digital resources into an aggregate archival file together with related information. The WARC format is a revision of the Internet Archive's ARC File Format [ARC_IA] format that has traditionally been used to store "web crawls" as sequences of content blocks harvested from the World Wide Web. The WARC format generalizes the older format to better support the harvesting, access, and exchange needs of archiving organizations. Besides the primary content currently recorded, the revision accommodates related secondary content, such as assigned metadata, abbreviated duplicate detection events, and later-date transformations.

@dresdencodak: The fact that we allow basically all human beings to drive cars at all is kind of baffling to me sometimes.

According to documents recently filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the RIAA was asking for damages of about $72 trillion dollars, a figure that the judge in the case said is "absurd." Judge Kimba Wood wrote in a recent decision that, "An award based on the RIAA calculations would amount to 'more money than the entire music industry has made since Edison's invention of the phonograph in 1877.'"

According to documents recently filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the RIAA was asking for damages of about $72 trillion dollars, a figure that the judge in the case said is "absurd." Judge Kimba Wood wrote in a recent decision that, "An award based on the RIAA calculations would amount to 'more money than the entire music industry has made since Edison's invention of the phonograph in 1877.'"

UPDATE: The jury verdict is in. They found no infringement of the patents!

But "loss prevention" officers at the Target on Stevens Creek Boulevard in Cupertino had never seen anyone take an interest in bar codes quite like Thomas Langenbach, a top Silicon Valley executive with the global software giant SAP. Prosecutors charged Monday that Langenbach used the tools of his trade -- computer codes and the Internet -- to steal a Santa's workshop worth of Lego toys. They say Langenbach brought his own bar code stickers to the store, used them to cover up the real ones, and then purchased his plastic prey at enormous discounts.

Recurring nightly.

Dear MSM: OWS does not "clash with the police" we are unarmed, peaceful protesters who are savagely attacked by the police. #MSM #noNATO

Creating QR codes is a quick and easy process using a few model signals and the PyQRNative port. The hardest part of this implementation was finding a way to use the Django ContentFile object to save the generated QR code using our selected storage backend. This was important because you would not have to worry about changes to your system architecture effecting your QR generation code. An example would be moving from local filesystem storage to S3 using Django Storages (django-storages).

Creating QR codes is a quick and easy process using a few model signals and the PyQRNative port. The hardest part of this implementation was finding a way to use the Django ContentFile object to save the generated QR code using our selected storage backend. This was important because you would not have to worry about changes to your system architecture effecting your QR generation code. An example would be moving from local filesystem storage to S3 using Django Storages (django-storages).

Program design: The program hung at an angle, so the names were rotated accordingly to ensure optimal readability. The hole was drilled in the bottom gutter of the booklet so it could be easily flipped through while attached to the lanyard.

Program design: The program hung at an angle, so the names were rotated accordingly to ensure optimal readability. The hole was drilled in the bottom gutter of the booklet so it could be easily flipped through while attached to the lanyard.

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Don Draper is no longer Mad Men's hero. That honor now belongs to Michael Ginsberg, the young Jewish copywriter whose work has already upstaged Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce's longtime brilliant creative director. More »

A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that over a 13-year period studied, there "was a significant inverse association between coffee consumption and mortality," meaning that people who drank coffee had a lower risk of death, particularly from "heart disease, respiratory problems, strokes, injuries and accidents, diabetes and infections." More »

When nine-year-old Josef Miles spotted members of Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church doing their hate-mongering thing on the Washburn University campus in Topeka, he asked his mother, Patty Akrouche, if he could stage a small counter-protest to their message of intolerance. More »

It's graduation time and that means various notables are giving commencement addresses like nobody's business. Last week, Mitt Romney spoke at Liberty University, which provided Bill Maher with a jumping off point on tonight's Real Time. I know this is gonna shock you, but Maher isn't a big fan of any part of it.

Sixteen years ago, aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin wrote The Case for Mars, outlining his plan for a manned mission to Mars. Since then, we haven't put a human on the Red Planet or returned to the moon, and Zubrin argues that one reason is that we are too obsessed with the safety of astronauts. Zubrin's article "How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?" appeared in the February issue of the magazine Reason. The gist of his argument is laid out in the video above: that NASA fails to perform an appropriate cost-benefit analysis when deciding whether to send astronauts on missions, instead valuing the life of the astronaut above all. Zubrin notes that other government agencies do these analyses all the time; for example, the Department of Transportation will reject a safety improvement proposal if the proposed expenditure will cost more than $3 million per life saved. Even if we valued an astronaut's training and skills at $50 million per astronaut, Zubrin argues that doesn't justify, for example, the cancellation of the mission to save, repair, and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope in 2004 due to risk of astronaut death. Zubrin is arguing in part for allowing astronauts to decide for themselves whether to accept the risk of manned missions to Mars and the moon, but also for risking human life to maintain and improve pieces of our space research infrastructure. I suspect, though, that NASA is considering not only the individual worth of an astronaut, but also how the death of an astronaut affects the public's view of the space program. It will be interesting to see if, with the advent of commercial space ventures, astronaut death will become a more routine aspect of space exploration, and whether the public at large will accept those deaths as a cost of human expansion into space. What is an Astronaut's Life Worth?: An Interview with Robert Zubrin [via reddit]

Michael Gove, the education secretary, thinks there should be a copy of the King James Bible in every state school. Photograph: Jim Corwin/Getty Images F or…

Matt Mechtley is responsible for this maker’s dream project: getting a classic Nintendo Power Glove to work with custom games by replacing it’s brain with an arduino, implanting an accelerometer for motion detection, and using a bluetooth modem for wireless connectivity. He’s outdone himself with downloadable code, schematics, this awesome video, and an Instructable to top it off.

Matt Mechtley is responsible for this maker’s dream project: getting a classic Nintendo Power Glove to work with custom games by replacing it’s brain with an arduino, implanting an accelerometer for motion detection, and using a bluetooth modem for wireless connectivity. He’s outdone himself with downloadable code, schematics, this awesome video, and an Instructable to top it off.

According to law enforcement sources and police reports obtained by the Tribune, the arrests were the result of a monthlong investigation into a group suspected of making Molotov cocktails — crude bombs usually created by filling glass bottles with gasoline. But the National Lawyers Guild criticized the police raid, saying the nine NATO protesters only had beer-making equipment in their possession.

Client: We won’t be paying. We didn’t use your material. Me: You didn’t? I saw the brochure today, it is exactly what I designed for you. Client: No, it isn’t. You sent us a PDF of the document. We did not print the PDF, we took a screen capture of it and pasted it into Word. That’s what we printed. Me: Regardless of format, I designed it. I delivered what we agreed upon in the contract you signed. Client: Well, we didn’t print from your file, we used it in a different format.  Me: Okay, I think you’re misunderstanding something. I’ll have my lawyer explain it to you on Monday.

@davewiner: @lmorchard -- you'll get a lot of good ideas on the ride

@carlfish: My explanation for carrying a Pokémon poster began: “I was buying Magic cards…” because that makes it LESS NERDY, right?

So now I'm on the cusp of releasing a tool that allows you to write directly onto the web in an outliner. The distance between the content on your machine and it being on the web is one mouse-click. That's exactly how far you want it to be. My father is not alive to see this, but if he were, he'd probably die from excitement. This is something he and I shared, at a genetic level, in our DNA, is this idea that the human mind can reach outside of itself, onto a computer, to make even more powerful and useful intellectual structures. Honestly, I wish he were here to share this with me. permalink

But my Commodore 64 is mobile now, like yours, and the modems are invisible, and the internet is the air all around us. And the good friends, the real friends, are finding each other, and connecting with each other, and my Mom is turning out to be more right than ever.

Whether you've always wanted to learn or you're a veteran looking for a fun new way to practice, get ready to join the thousands using Synthesia.

Whether you've always wanted to learn or you're a veteran looking for a fun new way to practice, get ready to join the thousands using Synthesia.

The Shelf is an interface feature in NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP, and is used as a repository to store links to commonly used files, directories and programs, and as a temporary "holding" place to move/copy files and directories around in the file system hierarchy. In Mac OS X, items may be dragged onto the sidebar area of the Finder while holding the Apple key, but these do not behave as placeholders and cannot be manipulated in the below manner.

Dragging and dropping is a great way to get stuff done on your Mac, but DragonDrop makes it even better. DragonDrop lets you set down what you're dragging, leaving you free to find your destination without worrying about keeping the mouse button held down.

Dragging and dropping is a great way to get stuff done on your Mac, but DragonDrop makes it even better. DragonDrop lets you set down what you're dragging, leaving you free to find your destination without worrying about keeping the mouse button held down.

The new native Android UI version of Firefox does not ship with a dedicated Error Console. Instead, all console messages are redirected to the Android system log – also known as logcat. If you have the Android SDK installed, you already have a way to view the logcat:

The new native Android UI version of Firefox does not ship with a dedicated Error Console. Instead, all console messages are redirected to the Android system log – also known as logcat. If you have the Android SDK installed, you already have a way to view the logcat:

You're watching one of the various Law & Order shows, the story is starting to pick up, and as the detectives start going through the usual Red Herring suspects, they interview the victim's mom and it's Angela Lansbury. Or their poolboy is Ian Somerhalder. Or William Mapother. Or "Trey" from The O.C.. Even though the detectives pass them over at first, you just know that they're going to be important in the episode, because they wouldn't have paid to cast a well-known actor in a throwaway role. It is very common that the most recognizable actor is the guilty party.

Writing appears more forgiving because there is no compiler or interpreter catching your its and it’s issues or reminding you of the rules regarding that or which. Here’s the rub: there is a compiler and it’s fucking brutal. It’s your readers. Your readers are far more critical than the Python interpreter. Not only do they care about syntax, but they also want to learn something, and, perhaps, be entertained while all this learning is going down. Success means they keep coming back - failure is a lonely silence. Python is looking pretty sweet now, right?

what a nice reenactment of every one of my highschool memories

the easiest way to run PostgreSQL on the Mac

the easiest way to run PostgreSQL on the Mac

@EnglishMossop: @lmorchard shh, you'll put us out of a job!

@davedash: @lmorchard "First, you have to realize that you can make a CPU can do things on your behalf-" gi joe....

@hillzy: Thank god we have @lmorchard http://t.co/JuVVhwiN

@deadsquid: Les nails it. Self-sufficiency leads to understanding; is the important part RT @lmorchard: Please do learn to code. http://t.co/GzZWyOHi”

It appears to be dawning on clients who control the U.S.'s major ad budgets that if your marketing content is interesting enough you don't need to advertise on Facebook. Advertising on Facebook is free, if you can create something compelling enough to go viral without a major media spend behind it.

But Judge Alsup wasn’t convinced. He told the court he had learned to code in Java for the trial — implying that he knew other languages as well — and he said that he had written some of the infringing code at least a hundred times since Oracle filed its suit in August 2010. “I can do it. You can do it. It’s so simple,” he said, adding that it takes less than five minutes. Then looked directly at Boies. “You’re one of the best lawyers in America — how can you make that argument?” he demanded.

But Judge Alsup wasn’t convinced. He told the court he had learned to code in Java for the trial — implying that he knew other languages as well — and he said that he had written some of the infringing code at least a hundred times since Oracle filed its suit in August 2010. “I can do it. You can do it. It’s so simple,” he said, adding that it takes less than five minutes. Then looked directly at Boies. “You’re one of the best lawyers in America — how can you make that argument?” he demanded.

The last couple of days, there's been a fair amount of blogosphere angst over Coding Horror's "Please Don't Learn to Code." Ironically, the best argument for learning to code appeared this morning, when it turned out that Judge William Alsup in the Google case could program, and learned Java in the course of the trial, and wasn't going for Oracle's claim that a short range-checking function was days of work. Alsup recognized immediately (and says he wrote the function hundreds of times during the course of the trial) that it's just a few minutes work for a competent programmer.

The transformative power of "source always included" in JavaScript is a major reason why I coined – and continue to believe in – Atwood's Law. Even if "view source" isn't built in (but it totally should be), you should demand access to the underlying source code for your stack. No matter what the documentation says, the source code is the ultimate truth, the best and most definitive and up-to-date documentation you're likely to find. This will be true forever, so the sooner you come to terms with this, the better off you'll be as a software developer.

@progrium: I found an email from @chaddickerson in 2006 replying to my registration for the first Yahoo Hack Day saying they were fans of SHDH.

@Commodork: Failed advertising: while watching Seinfeld on Crackle, Crackle interrupts the show to tell me Seinfeld is available on Crackle.

@Mauriat: @lmorchard actually it wouldn't hurt if ppl knew how data pipes worked as well

Tipping: It's a pain. Not so much because we don't like rewarding good service — we absolutely do — it's just that we never have any idea what's customary to tip for service outside a restaurant. I mean, what do you tip a New York City cab driver, 10%? It turns out that's exactly what most people used to tip cabbies — 10%. Used to, that is, until cabs were forced to install touch screen payment systems that accept credit cards.

In reality, all of these services make money from your content. Either they serve advertisements next door to your content or they are targeting advertisements towards you, specifically, depending on whatever it is that you are sounding off about on these services.

In reality, all of these services make money from your content. Either they serve advertisements next door to your content or they are targeting advertisements towards you, specifically, depending on whatever it is that you are sounding off about on these services.

Tweet-a-Watt is a DIY wireless power monitoring system. The project uses an 'off the shelf' power monitor called the Kill-a-Watt and adds wireless reporting. Each plug transmits the power usage at that outlet to a central computer receiver. The receiver can then log, graph and report the data. This pack contains nearly everything* necessary to build a single outlet monitor and receiver. To monitor additional outlets, you will need an add-on transmitter pack. One outlet can monitor up to 1500 Watts.

Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.

Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.

I've been trying to re-implement an HTML5 image uploader like the one on the Mozilla Hacks site, but that works with WebKit browsers. Part of the task is to extract an image file from the canvas object and append it to a FormData object for upload.

postMessage is a new HTML5 Javascript API for allowing scripts on different domains to communicate with each other safely.

Using html2canvas how can I save a screen shot to an object? I've been exploring the demos, and see that the function to generate the screenshot is generated as follows:

Uploading - HTML5 Canvas

For an upcoming canvas project I want to give the users the ability to upload the content of the canvas to an image sharing service. When looking for a suitable API I came across imgur.com the registration was trivial, and they support CORS and base64/dataurl uploads, perfect!

You lead busy a life, and finding time to stay healthy is tough. Fortunately, all you need is 20 minutes of exercise per day to get fit . If you don't have the…

What properties must a garment have so that it can be turned inside-out and right-side-out?

Joseph Shoer is a Ph.D. candidate in aerospace engineering, studying how modular spacecraft could be assembled, and hoping that they will be the telescopes and…

here’s an easy but satisfying twist on regular ol’ eggs. slice a cross section of red bell pepper so you get a nice circle-ish shape. take care to cut it so it will sit flat on a pan. heat both sides of the pepper in a frying pan for a minute or two, so that the pepper starts to soften but not too much. then, crack open an egg and put it right in the middle of the pepper.

here’s an easy but satisfying twist on regular ol’ eggs. slice a cross section of red bell pepper so you get a nice circle-ish shape. take care to cut it so it will sit flat on a pan. heat both sides of the pepper in a frying pan for a minute or two, so that the pepper starts to soften but not too much. then, crack open an egg and put it right in the middle of the pepper.

@jenihead: i wish "up in arms" meant Gettin A Hug

Frank (Joel Murray) has had enough of the downward spiral of American culture, which he sees as overrun with cruelty, stupidity and intolerance. Divorced, recently fired, and possibly terminally ill, Frank truly has nothing left to live for. But instead of taking his own life, he buys a gun and decides to take out his frustration on the cruelest, stupidest, most intolerant people he can imagine—starting with some particularly odious reality television stars. Frank finds an unusual accomplice in a high-school student named Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), who shares his sense of rage and disenfranchisement, and together they embark on a nation-wide assault on our country’s dumbest, most irritating celebrities.

Frank (Joel Murray) has had enough of the downward spiral of American culture, which he sees as overrun with cruelty, stupidity and intolerance. Divorced, recently fired, and possibly terminally ill, Frank truly has nothing left to live for. But instead of taking his own life, he buys a gun and decides to take out his frustration on the cruelest, stupidest, most intolerant people he can imagine—starting with some particularly odious reality television stars. Frank finds an unusual accomplice in a high-school student named Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), who shares his sense of rage and disenfranchisement, and together they embark on a nation-wide assault on our country’s dumbest, most irritating celebrities.

My first demo is a simple Canvas element which can be used to make a collage of images.

My first demo is a simple Canvas element which can be used to make a collage of images.

Why is sex such a dominant cultural theme now, and why does it seem to only be getting worse? Women have been rightly bitching about this for years, but men never seem to complain. Personally, I hate it. I hate the way men are stereotyped as sex-starved cock robots. It’s just such a basic pop culture premise that it doesn’t even get questioned; men want to fuck. All the time. Ideally while watching shit blow up.

Client: All our sites are down! Me: Seems fine here. Client: We pay you to maintain this stuff, not cause more problems! Me: I didn’t take your sites down. How do you know it’s my fault? Client: It can’t be our fault! Our internet doesn’t even seem to be working!

DALLAS, TX - Dionne Washington claims to have the biggest butt in the world.

DALLAS, TX - Dionne Washington claims to have the biggest butt in the world.

“Can you take this black and white page and make a photocopy of it back to color?”

The authors report that, when the Furuvik Zoo reopened for its 2011 season, Santino had lost interest in hurling stones at visitors. He is most likely coming up with a new devious plot.

The artwork of Randy Regier channels the dime store toy aisles and the flashy comic book advertisements of the 1950s and 1960s. His toys promise rip-roaring thrills on their colorful packages...and deliver confusion, horror, and crushing disappointment once de-boxed. Let's take a look at some of Randy's unabashedly rip-off playthings like John Manshaft the misleading action figure — he comes with hand-painted socks! — and the gasoline-fueled "electric Sun." Regier's toys are filled with various forms of snake oil sleight of hand. A box that screams ELECTRIC TRAIN SET contains small print denoting it's actually an ELECTRIC man waiting for a TRAIN SET — the locomotive is nowhere to be found. His John Manshaft line boasts exciting box art of the hero in space and medieval times, but most boxes only contain a single forlorn, bug-eyed action figure in his underwear (Manufacturer Gypco Toys covertly informs the consumer to "cut out box lid for clothes and accessories.") Still other doodads are plain unsettling — look no further than the prancing abomination Tardy the Man Pony. Here's a sampling of Regier's many demented playthings. "Ric was apparently a regional politician who had these sets made to give the children of potential supporters. Set is filled with miniature campaign signs bearing Ric's name, but no cars are in evidence." "Note fine print on box front, 'not actual size.' Actual toy in box is red tin sedan scarcely four inches in length." "American Battery Using Astronaut — requires seven batteries but has no apparent functions." "Fine print on box says, 'See end panel for model this kit builds.' End panel says, 'Pot with lid and spatula.'" "Made of cast iron, weighs over 100 pounds." "Block of wood comes with carving knife attached. Knife in this kit has been broken." You can see many more of Regier's Americana hellhole artifacts at his Flickr account and website. And if you're especially lucky, he must just have a spare Tardy action figure on the market, looking for a loving home. [Spotted on I♥C]

@Vaguery: "All habits are demands for certain kinds of activity; and they constitute the self." is the filter through which I see the day today.

“Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.” - Richard Feynman, another tidbit to celebrate his birthday. He would have been 94 today.

True Story. A large consumer internet company where I worked sent in a team of lawyers to check over the fledgling social network I was building. The registration flow concerned them. There needed to be a check where the person registering was required to submit their date of birth so that we could ensure they were over 13. The advice of the lawyers was to throw an error if someone underage tried to register. “What kind of error?” I asked. “A generic error, something like, Your registration has failed or The system is down for maintenance.“ As a product guy, if there is one thing I hate more than a generic error message it’s a deceptive one. I want to give the user a specific error message that tells them what went wrong. “Can I just tell them that they are too young to use the service?” “No, then they would just adjust their date of birth and re-register,” said the legal department. We all know this is what happens anyway, it’s one of the great collective nod and winks of the internet along with checking the [I understand and grok completely] boxes on the End User License Agreements we find across the web. I argued that we must give them a more specific error so it doesn’t look like our service is broken. Legal didn’t want me to tip our had too much. What to do? We compromised. The new error message? The agreed upon language? You cannot use this service . . . at this time.

Here's Kitt and his delightful progeny cleverly disguised as a tauntaun and Han Solo on the frozen ice-world of Hoth: "His tauntaun even had removable guts to warm your hands with." Happy House Warming, Kitt! (via Super Punch)

"An it harm none, do as you will. An it cause harm, do as you must."

valuelesss: you cant just look at one thing

[via]

Police have arrested a man they say attacked the driver of a horse-drawn carriage then took the reins in downtown St. Louis on Tuesday night. Police said the victim was steering a horse-drawn carriage southbound on 8th Street between Chestnut and Market around 8:25 p.m. when he saw the suspect running toward him. Authorities said Johnny Medina, 40, jumped into the side of the carriage and hit the victim in the head with a cane. Medina then took control of the reins and the victim jumped out of the carriage, according to police. A witness in the area called police, who responded to the scene and followed the carriage. Police said the horse, whose name is Harry, continued pulling the carriage and ran back to his barn at the St. Louis Carriage Company stables, located at 1000 Cerre Street. The carriage then crashed into and damaged a trolley bus on the parking lot. Police said another employee of the carriage company ran out and started to remove the horse from the carriage to get it back inside the stable. Medina then jumped down from the carriage and started punching and kicking the horse. Police said the employee and witnesses pushed Medina to the ground and detained him until police arrived. Carriage company employees told police the horse did not have any visible injuries, but would be checked by a veterinarian. The victim refused medical treatment at the scene. The suspect was taken to the hospital and remains in custody. Medina has been charged with second degree robbery and third degree assault. With news video.

Tom Wilson, better known as the bully Biff from Back To the Future, gets asked a lot of questions about his legendary role. Instead of being uptight and refusing to talk about one of the greatest movie franchises of all time, he created this business card. Behold. And if you still have even more BTTF questions, Wilson has a song for you. Sadly he doesn't answer if he ever received my fanfic, titled Biff's Revenge. [via Shaun Usher at @LettersOfNote]

@jrconlin: @lmorchard Honestly, most of the fake accounts are far more entertaining than the verified ones.#stillUnverified

The Internet Explorer process on W8ARM has special privileges and is the only one allowed to run a JIT compiler to speed up JavaScript. No other browser will be able to compete on performance with IE on W8ARM. That sure simplifies keeping up with the competition ... ;-)

The difference is subtle, but the comparison makes it very clear. There are several major problems with the computer-created icons that leaves them looking blurry and unimpressive. For example, in the transition from 66x40 to 48x30 pixels, the human version drops the border down to exactly 2 pixels but the computer drops it to 2.8 (that's two solid black pixels, plus one half-pixel at 80% intensity), which gives it an incorrect soft edge. The computer has no way of knowing that the border should always be sharp, so it ignorantly tries to maintain the ratio of the originally-specified image at the expense of sharpness. The result is not great.

Use this mark to identify Markdown

I'm making something that uses Markdown, and there's currently no great universal symbol for identifying Markdown support. So I created one.

Google has been slowly rolling out new features and closer integration between all of its products and Google+, and yesterday it was Gmail's turn to g

Teenagers can spend weeks thinking about their prom outfits and the whole day getting ready. A group of them in Wisconsin expected their perfect looks to last all night. Instead, they were soaking wet in a matter of minutes. "It's completely unexpected. It doesn't even happen on TV, and all of a sudden here it is happening to us," said Matt Timm. A group of friends went to waters off of Lac La Belle in Oconomowoc on Saturday to take a group photo before prom. Little did they know as they stood on a wooden pier that they were about to make a life-long memory when the pier suddenly collapsed. Soaking wet, the girls and guys were pulled from the water. Trying to dry off before prom, they ran so many hair dryers they blew a breaker inside a home. But with some borrowed shirts for the guys and some touch-up makeup for the girls, the group finally made it to the big event. "We're laughing about it now and it's hilarious, and I'm sure my kids will laugh at it. It'll be remembered a long time," said one of the teens. There's a news video here.

Aberdeen woman, Stacey Summers, 25, who gave up alcohol for a month and persuaded her friends to join her, has spoken of the experience. Stacey, whose dad Gavin passed away after battling an alcohol-related illness, said: “I struggled. I really, really did. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.”

The United States is a slightly better place to be a mom this year than it was last year, according to the annual State of the World's Mothers report released by the Save the Children international aid organization earlier this week. More »

Mozilla has already announced that it's working on a Metro-style version of the Firefox browser for Windows 8, but the company is now crying foul over what is says are Microsoft's intentions to limit user choice for browsers on ARM-based devices. At issue is Windows RT, which as Mozilla states in a blog post will feature two environments: Metro, and the more-traditional Windows Classic. According to the company, however, the only browser that will be allowed to run in Windows Classic mode will be Microsoft's own Internet Explorer, locking out any third-party options. Given that other browsers can run in the Metro environment, Mozilla points out that there should be no technical limitation preventing apps from being able to run in Classic... Continue reading…

Novelist Iain Banks might be better known as Iain M Banks, the pen name under which most of his speculative fiction is published. Of this oeuvre, his Culture series is most widely celebrated, depicting a utopian, galaxy-spanning civilisation whose citizens (when they aren’t meddling in the affairs of lesser races) have plenty of time for gaming.

Zuckerberg didn't get where he is today by trading in his signature look for something that looks more CEO friendly. He built the Facebook magic wearing a hoodie -- at least according to The Social Network. At the very least he did it in a place where hoodies are fashion-appropriate. Since then he has worn the hoodie. And also since then, Facebook has grown and he's made lots of money. Coincidence? Maybe. But Zuckerberg clearly doesn't think so.

Zuckerberg didn't get where he is today by trading in his signature look for something that looks more CEO friendly. He built the Facebook magic wearing a hoodie -- at least according to The Social Network. At the very least he did it in a place where hoodies are fashion-appropriate. Since then he has worn the hoodie. And also since then, Facebook has grown and he's made lots of money. Coincidence? Maybe. But Zuckerberg clearly doesn't think so.

At one point during The Avengers, Black Widow points out that Loki has "killed 80 people in two days" to which Thor responds, "He's adopted." That exchange has drawn the ire of the adoption community and they've launched a petition demanding an apology from Disney.

At one point during The Avengers, Black Widow points out that Loki has "killed 80 people in two days" to which Thor responds, "He's adopted." That exchange has drawn the ire of the adoption community and they've launched a petition demanding an apology from Disney.

One reason the unemployment rate may have remained persistently high: The sharp cuts in state and local government spending in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, and the layoffs those cuts wrought.

One reason the unemployment rate may have remained persistently high: The sharp cuts in state and local government spending in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, and the layoffs those cuts wrought.

Perhaps the best implementation of educational technology in the developing world, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) designed their own laptop—it’s durable, light, can withstand extreme conditions, and, most importantly, is easily repairable by the children themselves. Remove four Phillips screws, and the screen’s off. Four more screws, and the motherboard’s off. Their repair and troubleshooting guides are available on each laptop and online, and they are also developing a list of sources for repair parts.

Perhaps the best implementation of educational technology in the developing world, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) designed their own laptop—it’s durable, light, can withstand extreme conditions, and, most importantly, is easily repairable by the children themselves. Remove four Phillips screws, and the screen’s off. Four more screws, and the motherboard’s off. Their repair and troubleshooting guides are available on each laptop and online, and they are also developing a list of sources for repair parts.

Lorena Gaillot came to NYC from France and didn't know what a hipster was. So she took to the streets of Williamsburg to find out. (thx, phillip) Tags: Lorena Gaillot   NYC   video

From ABC4: After participating in a DECA conference in Salt Lake City with several classmates last week, Savannah, who is a type one diabetic and wears an insulin pump 24 hours a day, says she ran into TSA agents who were not prepared to deal with her medical situation. “I went up to the lady and I said, I am a type one diabetic. I wear an insulin pump. I showed her the pump. I said, what do you want me to do? I usually do a pat down – what would you recommend?” Savannah then showed agents a doctor’s note explaining that the sensitive insulin pump should not go through the body scanner. She says she was told to go through it anyway. “When someone in a position of authority tells you it is – you think that its right. So, I said, Are you sure I can go through with the pump? It’s not going to hurt the pump? And she said no, no you’re fine.” The 16-year-old walked into the scanner with some serious reservations “My life is pretty much in their hands when I go through a body scan with my insulin pump on.” She was right to be worried. She says the pump stopped working correctly. “Coming off an insulin pump is rough. You never know what is going to happen when you are not on the insulin pump.” via Cat Vincent | /.

From ABC4: After participating in a DECA conference in Salt Lake City with several classmates last week, Savannah, who is a type one diabetic and wears an insulin pump 24 hours a day, says she ran into TSA agents who were not prepared to deal with her medical situation. “I went up to the lady and I said, I am a type one diabetic. I wear an insulin pump. I showed her the pump. I said, what do you want me to do? I usually do a pat down – what would you recommend?” Savannah then showed agents a doctor’s note explaining that the sensitive insulin pump should not go through the body scanner. She says she was told to go through it anyway. “When someone in a position of authority tells you it is – you think that its right. So, I said, Are you sure I can go through with the pump? It’s not going to hurt the pump? And she said no, no you’re fine.” The 16-year-old walked into the scanner with some serious reservations “My life is pretty much in their hands when I go through a body scan with my insulin pump on.” She was right to be worried. She says the pump stopped working correctly. “Coming off an insulin pump is rough. You never know what is going to happen when you are not on the insulin pump.” via Cat Vincent | /.

Self-publish your book as you write it, and earn great royalties!

Self-publish your book as you write it, and earn great royalties!

Scott Shane and Eric Schmitt in The New York Times dig deeper into yesterday's news of a new would-be Al Qaeda underwear bomber, "dispatched by the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda last month to blow up a United States-bound airliner." He was a double agent for the CIA who infiltrated Al Qaeda, and "volunteered for the suicide mission." He also provided intelligence that led to Sunday's drone strike killing a USS Cole bombing suspect. Snip:

@mike_thomas: Photo: Now I really want to move to Toronto http://t.co/cL4lxDKx

Atheists and agnostics are more driven by compassion to help others than are highly religious people, a new study finds.

Atheists and agnostics are more driven by compassion to help others than are highly religious people, a new study finds.

Mitchell Baker. Photo: Joi/ Flickr Fourteen years ago, as a lawyer for Netscape, Mitchell Baker created the open source license that made Netscape’s code free.…

Mitchell Baker. Photo: Joi/ Flickr Fourteen years ago, as a lawyer for Netscape, Mitchell Baker created the open source license that made Netscape’s code free.…

The message from Yahoo: We own the Web and everything powering it.

The message from Yahoo: We own the Web and everything powering it.

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a tea party activist that’s appeared several times on Fox News, and founder of an organization where Sean Hannity serves as an advisory board member, said in a sermon recently published to YouTube that America’s greatest mistake was allowing women the right to vote, adding that back in “the good old days, men knew that women are crazy and they knew how to deal with them.”

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a tea party activist that’s appeared several times on Fox News, and founder of an organization where Sean Hannity serves as an advisory board member, said in a sermon recently published to YouTube that America’s greatest mistake was allowing women the right to vote, adding that back in “the good old days, men knew that women are crazy and they knew how to deal with them.”

Despite the widespread availability of pirated releases, The Avengers just scored a record-breaking $200 million opening weekend at the box office. While some are baffled to see that piracy failed to crush the movie’s profits, it’s really not that surprising. Claiming a camcorded copy of a movie seriously impacts box office attendance is the same as arguing that concert bootlegs stop people from seeing artists on stage.

Despite the widespread availability of pirated releases, The Avengers just scored a record-breaking $200 million opening weekend at the box office. While some are baffled to see that piracy failed to crush the movie’s profits, it’s really not that surprising. Claiming a camcorded copy of a movie seriously impacts box office attendance is the same as arguing that concert bootlegs stop people from seeing artists on stage.

By piecing together the "bricks" that dictate a character's mood, actions, and responses to the player, every encounter in the game turns into a "choose your own adventure" that has a variety of outcomes.

By piecing together the "bricks" that dictate a character's mood, actions, and responses to the player, every encounter in the game turns into a "choose your own adventure" that has a variety of outcomes.

How dumb court decisions and bad laws have made it all but impossible for musicians to sample the way the Beastie Boys used to.

Ubu Productions is an independent production company founded in 1982 by producer Gary David Goldberg. Ubu’s had made some pretty famous shows, including Family Ties and Spin City. If the name sounds familiar, it might be that you love those shows or it is more likely because at the end of many Ubu produced shows, you had a photo of a black Labrador Retriever with a Frisbee in his mouth.

Ubu Productions is an independent production company founded in 1982 by producer Gary David Goldberg. Ubu’s had made some pretty famous shows, including Family Ties and Spin City. If the name sounds familiar, it might be that you love those shows or it is more likely because at the end of many Ubu produced shows, you had a photo of a black Labrador Retriever with a Frisbee in his mouth.

I remember reading about the no-www movement years ago. At that time it struck me as a cool thing to do, but I now know that no-www is a really bad idea in general. That’s because the DNS system lets you assign CNAME records to subdomains, including the www subdomain, but only A or AAAA records to root domains. In other words, you can say that www.example.com is the same as test.example.org, but you can only say that example.com is the same as a particular IP address.

If you do a view-source you find no other script in use, yet it displays in the page. What is this sourcery*? Simple, and it was Mathias Bynens who got me onto it: just display script elements as block and add some generated content to show the “Source” text:

If you do a view-source you find no other script in use, yet it displays in the page. What is this sourcery*? Simple, and it was Mathias Bynens who got me onto it: just display script elements as block and add some generated content to show the “Source” text:

Natasha Singer / New York Times:Bank of America Starts Mortgage Reduction Effort  —  Bank of America has started sending letters to thousands of homeowners in the United States, offering to forgive a portion of the principal balance on their mortgages by an average of $150,000 each.  —  The reduction for qualifying homeowners …

Matt Yglesias argues that because of the way copyright is viewed by the public and interpreted by lawmakers and the courts, making an album like The Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique would be nearly impossible today. The death on Friday of Adam Yauch, best known as the Beastie Boys' MCA, surely sent many of us back to old albums we may not have heard for a while. And anyone who threw on Paul's Boutique, the Boys' best album, was surely struck by the sense that they don't make records like that anymore. That's not just because tastes and styles have changed. The entire album is based on lavish sampling of other recordings. "Shake Your Rump," which leads Slate's #MCATracks playlist, features samples of 14 songs by 12 separate artists. In all, the album is thought to have as many as 300 total samples. The sampling gave Paul's Boutique a sound that remains almost as distinctive today as it was when it was released in 1989. Perhaps the main reason-and certainly the saddest reason-that it still sounds distinctive is that a rapidly shifting legal and economic landscape made it essentially impossible to repeat. Tags: Beastie Boys   copyright   legal   Matt Yglesias   music

Phil Torrone of Adafruit sent me a bag full of maker skill patches. When my 9-year-old daughter came home from school today, her eyes popped out like a Tex Avery wolf. I told her she could have them all, but she has to earn them! I’ll work with her to help her earn the LED patch first.

Phil Torrone of Adafruit sent me a bag full of maker skill patches. When my 9-year-old daughter came home from school today, her eyes popped out like a Tex Avery wolf. I told her she could have them all, but she has to earn them! I’ll work with her to help her earn the LED patch first.

Once again, people are pushing for ISPs to apply filters. Such technical 'solutions' approach the problem from the wrong angle

A few years ago Dell began offering the Ubuntu distribution of Linux on its desktops and laptaps, but quietly dropped the option from its online store in 2010 (though it’s still possible to order certain machines with Ubuntu). Today at the Ubuntu Developers Summit Dell announced that it is dipping its toes into back into the Linux laptop market with Project Sputnik, a developer-centric laptop running Ubuntu 12.04 on Dell’s XPS13 Ultrabook hardware.

A few years ago Dell began offering the Ubuntu distribution of Linux on its desktops and laptaps, but quietly dropped the option from its online store in 2010 (though it’s still possible to order certain machines with Ubuntu). Today at the Ubuntu Developers Summit Dell announced that it is dipping its toes into back into the Linux laptop market with Project Sputnik, a developer-centric laptop running Ubuntu 12.04 on Dell’s XPS13 Ultrabook hardware.

Don't do this. (via @ryanaraine + @kimzetter)

Lake.js takes an img element and inserts a canvas element displaying the image and its flipped reflection directly after the img element.

Lake.js takes an img element and inserts a canvas element displaying the image and its flipped reflection directly after the img element.

In this world there wouldn’t be any ebook developers any more than you have .doc developers. The fact that we have an industry of people whose job description is close to indistinguishable from ‘fixes office documents by hand in a hex editor’ is insane.

In this world there wouldn’t be any ebook developers any more than you have .doc developers. The fact that we have an industry of people whose job description is close to indistinguishable from ‘fixes office documents by hand in a hex editor’ is insane.

Like any other drink, it is only as good as its worst ingredient. Fortunately, the basic margarita only has three: tequila, triple sec and lime juice. Choose a spirit made of 100% agave, stock your bar with a solid orange-flavored liqueur, squeeze fresh lime juice—think of how strong your forearms will get!—and nail the proportions and you'll have a wonderfully balanced sweet, tangy, slightly earthy (that's the 100% agave) drink to sip this Cinco de Mayo and throughout the summer.

Hi! I'm not currently looking for a job as I'm pretty happy at my current job. However Mozilla is looking for a recruiting manager in Mountain View. Mozilla also has deep ties in the open source communities and it sounds like it might be an interesting fit for you. <OPTIONAL-ADDITIONAL-TEXT> If you're interested in applying, check out our careers link: http://careers.mozilla.org/en-US/position/ojYkWfwh Looking forward to hearing from you! <SIGNATURE>

Last fall, we moved all the editorial in our apps, including the magazine, into a simple RSS feed in a river of news. We dumped the digital replica. Now we're redesigning Technologyreview.com, which we made entirely free for use, and we'll follow the Financial Times in using HTML5, so that a reader will see Web pages optimized for any device, whether a desktop or laptop computer, a tablet, or a smart phone. Then we'll kill our apps, too.

Last fall, we moved all the editorial in our apps, including the magazine, into a simple RSS feed in a river of news. We dumped the digital replica. Now we're redesigning Technologyreview.com, which we made entirely free for use, and we'll follow the Financial Times in using HTML5, so that a reader will see Web pages optimized for any device, whether a desktop or laptop computer, a tablet, or a smart phone. Then we'll kill our apps, too.

Stations haven't been playing "Mrs. Robinson" for 32 years just because everyone likes Simon & Garfunkel (although I really do love them!). It's because 80% of stations' playlists match all across the country. So much for thinking that media exposes us to new and different ideas, eh?

Photos of questionable veracity posted on Chinese microblogging site Sina Weibo by a person alleging to be a high school senior from the city of Xiaogan claim to show students studying for their National College Entrance Exams while hooked up to IV drips containing an unknown substance. More »

Today the Connecticut Senate passed a bill legalizing medical marijuana, becoming the 17th state to do so. The District of Columbia also allows for the medical use of marijuana. More »

"Artisan." Remember the word "artisan?" Perfectly valid word. Described an actual type of thing. Until the ad world got ahold of it, put it on the street, and pimped it out until every last chemical food concoction assembled by robots out of petroleum byproducts was marketed as "artisan." Totally killed the word. "Bespoke?" You're next. More »

Our electrical infrastructure spans the globe, lighting up every place on Earth. But it all relies on one singular metal: copper. And back in the early years of the 20th Century, many economists and engineers worried that we would run out of copper in no time. They looked at the fast pace of our copper usage, and fretted that the world's copper reserves would quickly be outpaced by humanity's desire for an electric world. Top image: Douglas Wheelock/International Space Station Peak Copper Theory80% of copper mined over the course of human history is in use right now — the copper streets lining the circuit board of your computer may be the same pieces of copper that once constructed a medieval chalice. The rate at which humanity used copper to install electric lights and form the foundation of our current infrastructure alarmed a number of miners, engineers, and economists in the early 20th Century. In the 1924 article Copper and electricity to vanish in twenty years?, copper mining engineer Ira Joralemon said: [T]he age of electricity and of copper will be short. At the intense rate of production that must come, the copper supply of the world will last hardly a score of years. [...] Our civilization based on electrical power will dwindle and die. This belief is yet to die — copper is necessary to build the infrastructure of any country, and as we continue through the Electronic Age, developing powers like Indian and China continue to devour copper. Should the world's copper supply run dry, electronics makers would turn to more expensive metals with similar properties, like silver (copper currently costs 24 cents per ounce, while silver hovers around $31 an ounce). Aluminum is another possible replacement for copper, but use of aluminum for electrical wiring brings about an increased chance of combustion and burning a building down. So copper is at least somewhat irreplaceable. In that case, why is it still so cheap? The copper economy is fragile Yasuo Hamanaka, a Japanese businessman, sought to artificially increase the value of copper by hoarding massive quantities of the metal, and in doing so, taught the world about the delicate nuances of the world's copper supply. By the mid-1990s, Hamanaka controlled 5% of the world's copper reserves. 5% does not sound like a lot, but copper is a not a commodity that can be moved around easily due to its mass, leaving Hamanaka's control of a small percentage to send waves through the world economy. Renewed mining efforts in China along with several financial probes intp Hamanaka's actions unraveled his scheme, with Hamanaka eventually serving seven years in prison for trading violations. Improved recovery methods 40% of the world's copper is mined in Chile, with mines holding a steady output, after a brief drop-off during 2008. Copper is durable and lasts an extremely long time — copper plumbing can last three centuries before substantial pitting occurs from water moving through the tubes. Copper is also extremely robust — the quality of recycled copper is extremely high, and very little mass is lost during the recycling process, allowing re-purposed copper to demand a price only a few percentage points below newly mined copper. This property of copper is essential, as it moves copper away from the category of expendable resources like petroleum and closer to the terrain of renewable resources. A combination of an increase in known reserves since the early 1900s and the current ability to turn a profit on ore containing less than 1% copper suggest a supple future for the world's copper reserves. Extreme recycling The ability to easily recycle copper may one day lead to a cottage industry of industrial-scale electronics recycling, with the process turning discarded laptops, televisions, and smartphones into scraps of useful copper, much like small scale recycling schemes currently recover gold and platinum from deceased electronics. Image by jakedolan/Flickr. In a dire situation, existing copper parts of our infrastructure could be removed and outfitted with plastic or other alternatives. Copper pipes buried underground could be replaced with PVC, while slowly oxidized, green copper roofs become black sheets of asphalt. No doubt an extreme and labor intensive undertaking, but a believable one if a profit motive exists. Wars fought over natural resources are not unheard of — could we see the day when countries go to war over copper mines? Not a likely scenario in our lifetimes, due to increased mining and recycling possibilities, but one that makes for interesting science fiction fodder. At the very least, our ancestors' fears of a small and finite copper supply appear to have been overcome, allowing us to sleep with the lights on. Images courtesy of Great Mining and Berry Mill Scrap. Sources linked within the article.

“Please send this to us by postal method. We do not communicate electromagnetically” - Hand-written letter

Mitt Romney has said, in effect, “I’m rich and I don’t apologize for it.” Nobody wants you to, Mitt. What some of us want—those who aren’t blinded by a lot of bullshit persiflage thrown up to mask the idea that rich folks want to keep their damn money—is for you to acknowledge that you couldn’t have made it in America without America.

A seaside resort in the North of England has become a magnet for goths who descend on the town twice a year.

Back when Pokémon were just a seizure-inducing flicker in Nintendo's eye, there was "Dark Warrior epilepsy," a form of epilepsy that was only reported once in the history of medicine. Nonetheless, this malady is responsible for one of the strangest paragraphs ever to grace a medical journal. In 1982, the British Medical Journal published a report from the Department of Neurology at Bristol's Frenchay Hospital. This article — simply and sinisterly titled "Dark Warrior epilepsy" — recounted how a 17-year-old girl with probable photosensitive epilepsy lost consciousness after playing the arcade game Dark Warrior (see gameplay below). As the researchers noted: She had played Space Invader, Asteroids, and Lunar Rescue and not suffered any known adverse effects. The patient subsequently avoided playing Dark Warrior, and her fits ceased. But that wasn't enough for our enterprising doctors. No, after witnessing terms like "Space Invader wrist tendonitis" and "Space Invader epilepsy" (which was erroneously coined during a case study of the game Astro Fighter) gain cachet in medical circles, these doctors were gung-ho to leave on a mark on the neuroscientific lexicon. Behold this magical paragraph: The term Space Invader epilepsy is, in fact, a misnomer, since no cases have been reported with the Space Invader video game itself. We suggest, therefore, that Astro Fighter and Dark Warrior epilepsy be classified under "electronic space war video game epilepsy" and this as a special category of photoconvulsive epilepsy. Video games other than space war games-for example, Super Bug and Munch Man-appear to be less epileptogenic. Electronic space war video game epilepsy has yet to be reported with Defender, Space Fury, Lunar Rescue, or Asteroids war games. I hope Munch Man's PR team exploited the hell out of that pull quote. And the next time I end up in the emergency room, I will slip "electronic space war video game epilepsy" among my list of complaints. (This is how to determine who was awake during med school.) Also, is Dark Warrior epilepsy is any way linked to outbreaks of Pac-Man Fever? This requires further inquiry. Semi-related: Another journal paragraph somehow penned with a straight face. [Via Mind Hacks]

Edward Gorey was the master of understated terrors, and if he'd ever illustrated the madness-inducing monsters of HP Lovecraft, they might look like John Kenn Mortensen's Post-It Monstres, in which horrific beasts loom over remarkably unperturbed kiddies. What's especially lovely about Mortensen's monster doodles is that, while Gorey is clearly an influence, it doesn't appear that he's fully aping Gorey's character design. And his empty-eyed monsters, occasionally tentacled and occasionally all teeth and hair, lend the scenes a sense of unavoidable doom. I wonder if the children will be the victims or instigators of that doom. Perhaps they will be both. You can see more of Mortensen's illustrations on his blog or in his Post-It Monstre art book. [via Lovecraftzine via MetaFilter]

dafuq

omnomnom

you have my attention

Me: I have that sample of the linen paper you wanted.  Do you want to come by and pick it up or should I mail it to you? Client: Just fax it to me. I had to explain to the client why I couldn’t fax a textile sample.

Client: We need this done right now. Me: So does that mean you’re sending the assets and copy changes I need to make the changes right now? Client: No! Me: So should I wait until you do? Client: No, I need this pamphlet finished right now. Me: So there aren’t copy changes and new images to include? Client: There are… Me: But you’re not sending those right now? Client: No, we’re not. Me: So you want me to send the previous version? Client: No, we want the new version with the copy changes and new images. Me: I think you and I aren’t understanding each other. Client: What do you mean?

@davedash: @nigelbabu @lmorchard @ubernostrum I'll tell you when you're older.

Now maybe you can see how science could have a successor: thalience would use objective truth as an artistic medium and merge subjectivity and objectivity in a creative activity whose purpose is the re-sanctification of the natural world. To believe in an uplifting and satisfying vision of your place in the universe, and to know that this vision is true (or as true as anything can be) would be sublime. Thalience would be an activity worthy of post-scientific humanity, or our own biological or post-biological successors.

However, below the cut, I'm going to put some bullet points for those of you who've read "Rule 34", just to draw your attention to some aspects of the novel that you might otherwise have skidded past.

This is a game about Perfect Strangers and everything is OK forever now.

Although current talk of national healthcare may seem new and revolutionary, it is far from the first time this issue has received national attention. Long before last year’s debate on national healthcare, prior to the healthcare discussions posed by Hillary Clinton in the 1990s, concerns over rising costs and the provision of healthcare in the United States generated attention in the late 1960s.

A chubby cat and a bunch of video game consoles, drawn by Kyle Fewell for Matt Hawkins’ long delayed but still anticipated FORT90ZINE4ANSWER. Fewell posted a similar awesome piece last week, but I didn’t get a chance to share it here before it blew up on Tumblr like whoa. Look at this cat. Find: Nintendo DS/3DS release dates, discounts, & more See also: More fanart [VIa Kyle Fewell]

A grandmother and grandfather from Sarasota, Florida, are facing numerous charges for towing a toy plastic car from behind their SUV with their grandchild seated inside. According to the arrest report, a Sarasota deputy on patrol spotted the SUV on Sunday, pulling a small plastic Hot Wheels car with the 7-year-old girl inside. The toy car was connected to the SUV with dog leads tied to the trailer hitch. The vehicle was travelling about five to 10 miles per hour, and a woman was riding in the rear with the hatch open, cheering the child on. The little girl had on a bathing suit, and no protective gear. The deputy immediately pulled the vehicle over, and in the arrest report states the driver of the SUV, 49-year-old Paul Berloni, had a strong smell of alcohol on him. Berloni told the deputy his drivers licence had been suspended for 10 years for DUI and at first said he had only two or three drinks. He later allegedly told the deputy he drank more, but wouldn't say how much. Berloni refused to take a field sobriety test and was placed into custody. The woman riding in back, 47-year-old Belinda Berloni, was also reportedly intoxicated and told the deputy that while she knew it was dangerous to drag the toy car, they were "just having fun and had been doing this all day."YouTube link. The child's father was called to the scene and was reportedly became very upset when he learned what happened. He reportedly said to his mother, Belinda, "Are you f---ing stupid? You should know better!" The father told investigators he believed both grandparents have a drinking problem. Paul Berloni was charged with DUI, driving while licence suspended and child neglect/endangerment. His Belinda Berloni was charged with child neglect/endangerment. Investigators say the child was unharmed in the incident.

source: http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m...

adocica: COME TO THE WALL, THEY SAID. IT WILL BE FUN, THEY SAID.

@steveivy: Ahhhh. Reminded by @wilw that Massive Attack exists. MASSIVE ATTACK, YOU ARE IN MY EARS.