Flutterby™!

“‘We Have Always Fought’: Challenging the ‘Women, Cattle and Slaves’ Narrative” by Kameron Hurley.

Some interesting notes on how we shape stories, and how stories shape our views. =

Via MeFi

Valerii Danevych makes tiny wood watches.

Valerii Danevych miniature wooden timepieces (YouTube video).

Pew Internet: Teens, Social Media, and Privacy.

danah boyd | apophenia: thoughts on Pew’s latest report: notable findings on race and privacy:

Over the last few years, I’ve watched as teens have given up on controlling access to content. It’s too hard, too frustrating, and technology simply can’t fix the power issues. Instead, what they’ve been doing is focusing on controlling access to meaning. ...

Interesting thoughts on steganography and the social contexts of language.

A Twitter exchange has me reading Jaron Lanier interviewed in Salon Magazine on how the Internet destroyed the middle class. And, yeah, I think this was part of the lesson of A Farewell To Alms: Humans will reproduce to Malthusian limits. If you don't do it, your neighbors will. Any productivity gains are going to get lost in that population swell.

And we're in the process of replacing a whole lot of human labor with mechanization.

I'm going to wait for a little more to flow in about how insightful the book is before I read it, I never found Lanier foresightful in a useful way, but it matches with my current thinking of how productivity flows.

Open plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more likely to get sick.

Readers expose a bike touring con man named "Ian".

Woman brags about hitting cyclist, discovers police also use Twitter.

"I knocked a cyclist off his bike. I have right of way, he doesn't even pay road tax".

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner urges jury nullification in Federal medical marijuana dispensary case:

But that's not atypical of the former "Freedom Rider" who served two months of jail time in Mississippi during the early years of the Civil Rights Era.

"This is way overdoing it when local laws, state laws allow compassionate use of medical marijuana,” Filner told reporters at the downtown U.S. District Court complex Monday. “Someone should not be going through this stage of prosecution for trying to help people to have access to medical marijuana."

Village Voice: Bail is Busted: How Jail Really Works. More on the asymmetry of the justice system, and how trial is for people who can both afford to and manage to get there:

But the really shocking revelation of the Freedom Fund experiment was this: More than half of the fund's clients eventually saw their cases either completely dismissed or knocked down to some noncriminal disposition. Not a single one ever went back to jail on the charges for which they were bailed out.

Without access to a bail fund, defendants in similar positions pleaded guilty to criminal charges 95 percent of the time. The fund's numbers made wincingly clear what everyone had already vaguely known: The current bail system has the direct effect of slapping criminal convictions on poor people who would otherwise win their cases.

Via MeFi

So far as I can tell from my social media feed, Yahoo bought Ray Manzarek and a giant tornado wiped out Tumblr and Flickr.

Hey, Larry, regarding "looking for the next Tumblr", I found some of the observations about the new social graph in Medium.com: The Next Facebook kicked a few neurons.

How to back up your (adult) Tumblr blog: http://www.erosblog.com/2013/05/20/how-to-back-up-your-tumblr/

Cthulhu meets LEGO. CthuGO? LEGlhu?

While replacing radiator in my truck yesterday, I ended up making a special wrench to remove the lower transmission cooler line easier. I ground the profile down so it would clear plastic mounting nubs around the fitting. Then I cut off the handle and welded it it at a 45 degree angle about in inch from the head. I'm sure there is a special socket/wrench doohicky at the Ford factory that does the same thing.

While doing this on a Sunday afternoon, grinding away, I was musing about the recent arguments about 3D printers, intellectual property, design, patent, copyright, "printing" guns and anything/everything else.

What I briefly laughed at was the idea of a constitutional amendment. Something like:

Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom to create, build, modify, tune, tinker any device or intellectual property withing our possession and ability.

Once upon a time, such a thing may have been possible. We are Americans and part of our culture and history has been the ability to create, improve (and sometimes destroy) "things" and "ideas".

I think it's going to end up more like:

SHOP TAX PAID and LICENSE GRANTED: 2013-05-01 # 910181816211 for 30 days, for the tools and equipment located at _________ until the next inspection due by 2013-06-15 to ensure no illegal items were manufactured, original manufacturer intellectual property rights violated, copyrighted designs copied or modified without the original owners permission....

Please log all tool and equipment use, consumables used in your logbook. Photographs of any item produced or modified with an estimated value over $20 USD required.

Consider using our "Global License" program, simple install one or more (depending on the size and layout of your shop) cameras and reduce the need for monthly visits and audits.

Due to the possibility of confusion, apparently "posse" is not a collective noun to use in groups of lesbians. I've been told...

Gay square dancing and I only get my ass grabbed once: Impressed with finely tuned gaydar, or disappointed that I'm not hot?

The American Journal of Medicine: The Impact of Marijuana Use on Glucose, Insulin, and Insulin Resistance among US Adults

Of the participants in our study sample, 579 were current marijuana users and 1975 were past users. In multivariable adjusted models, current marijuana use was associated with 16% lower fasting insulin levels (95% confidence interval [CI], −26, −6) and 17% lower HOMA-IR (95% CI, −27, −6). We found significant associations between marijuana use and smaller waist circumferences. Among current users, we found no significant dose-response.

Via Sensible Erection.

ClippyJS:

Our research shows that people love two things: failed Microsoft technologies and obscure Javascript libraries. Naturally, we decided to combine the two.

Via MeFi.

News reports say the board of Yahoo will meet Sunday night to ratify the purchase of Tumblr for some $1.1 billion. However, the signs were already out. Over on Erosblog they've been noting that all adult Tumblr sites have disappeared from Google and other search engines. Apparently tumblr inserted a script in all such sites to shoo off search indexing robots and make them harder to find. Speculation is that they were starting to clean out the property before Yahoo showed up. If you have NSFW material over yonder, back it up before Yahoo erases it.

I think that I can muster up a little soft shoe gentle sway, 'cause I feel like dancin'. All weekend. Off to Stumptown Stomp in Guerneville.

This is what email would have looked like if it had been invented in the Web 2.0 era.

Soldiers' portraits, before, during and after war.

CBS News: Officials on Benghazi: "We made mistakes, but without malice":

"We're portrayed by Republicans as either being lying or idiots," said one Obama administration official who was part of the Benghazi response. "It's actually closer to us being idiots."

Alex Chousa: The Perfect Housewife (4 photos, may be NSFW). Via Violet Impudence.

Drive Your Fat Ass To Work Day.

Bacon Bacon aroma set to end. SF Bacon Restaurant Must Close Due to Aroma Issue.

Journal of Adolescent Health: Middle and High School Drug Testing and Student Illicit Drug Use: A National Study 1998–2011:

Because the study design is observational and the data are cross-sectional, no strong causal conclusions can be drawn. However, there is evidence of lower marijuana use in the presence of SDT, and evidence of higher use of illicit drugs other than marijuana. Until further research can clarify the apparent opposing associations, schools should approach SDT with caution.

Sounds to me like if kids think they may get caught, they figure why not get caught for the hard stuff?

Via Student Drug Testing Programs Linked To Spikes In ‘Hard’ Drug Use by way of a Scarleteen tweet.

Ah, the past, when elevated bicycle superhighways were the future of commuting: http://motherboard.vice.com/bl...the-future-of-california-transit

Ezra Klein in the Washington Post: Everything you need to know about the IRS scandal in one FAQ

Skype with care: Microsoft is reading everything you write

Asked "other side programmer" regardiing XML samples for a SOAP/XML interface.

He emailed back:

public errorObject[] ReadingChangedNotification(meterReading[] changedMeterReads, string transactionID) public errorObject[] CDStatesChangedNotification (CDStateChange[] stateChanges, string transactionID)

The say part is, I understand what he really means is part of this:

this but he doesn't differentiate the XML from the code that he uses to generate it.

The Atlantic Cities - The Way We Build Cities Is Making Them Flood.

And, yes, on our list is tearing out the concrete patio in the back and replacing it with flagstone so that we have a more water permeable surface treatment in that space. Also something to think about as cities pursue higher densities...

The Ethical Adman - This is how you do sex in advertising.

Highlighting a series of absurdist commercials from SLO Down Wines.

Newegg nukes “corporate troll” Alcatel in third patent appeal win this year.

Thank you, Newegg.

Auto-correct of the moment: ductaping became dictating. Yeah, that kind of works...

So down in Bakersfield, Sheriff's deputies beat a man to death, and then confiscated the cell phones onto which people had recorded video of the beating "for evidence".

Yep. Video on at least one of those cell phones has gone missing.

That's an F3, right? Bets on whether anyone ever is actually charged with that felony?

Later addendum: Take video? Upload it ASAP.

Fair warning so you can re-watch the first two: Before Midnight opens on the 31st at the Smith Ranch Road theater http://sonyclassics.com/beforemidnight/dates.html

Cannabis Induces a Clinical Response in Patients with Crohn's Disease: a Prospective Placebo-Controlled Study.

RESULTS: Complete remission (a CDAI score <150) was achieved by 5/11 subjects in the cannabis group (45%) and 1/10 in the placebo group (10%; P=.43). A clinical response (a decrease in CDAI score of >100) was observed in 10/11 subjects in the cannabis group (90%; from 330±105 to 152±109) and 4/10 in the placebo group (40%; from 373±94 to 306±143; P=.028). Three patients in the cannabis group were weaned from steroid dependency. Subjects receiving cannabis reported improved appetite and sleep, with no significant side effects.

Via

John Resig: Asm.js - the JavaScript compile target. A good overview of Asm.js, a subscript of JavaScript designed to be a virtual machine targetable from different languages. Google appears to be ready to support this, which means that we'll head even further towards Firefox and Chrome becoming portable VM+UI platforms.

Uberdata: Mapping the San Franciscome. Using data from the Uber car service to look at San Francisco travel patterns, by neighborhood, gender, and technology preference.

Nature: Polar wander linked to climate change:

Between 1982 and 2005, the pole drifted southeast towards northern Labrador, Canada, at a rate of about 2 milliarcseconds — or roughly 6 centimetres — per year. But in 2005, the pole changed course and began galloping east towards Greenland at a rate of more than 7 milliarcseconds per year.

Via /..

Two things I think are interesting here: The first is that GPS is now becoming the reference system by which earth's rotational axis is measured. The second: 6 centimeters. That's gonna get tossed in the face of the next person who claims to me that somehow more accurate location systems are the enabling technology for autonomous vehicles or local mapping.

Whoah. Facebook is telling me [married person you know] used Zoosk. I suspect it's exaggerating, but: careful out there, people...

A Low-Cost Single-Pixel Thermographic Camera (PDF), or Poor Man's Thermographic Camera 2 (YouTube video).

A 160x120px thermographic camera runs over 10k Euros, this uses a pyrometer and a couple of R/C/ servos to create an 80x80px low frame-rate thermographic camera for about a hundred Euros.

Cotati California police kick down a door and taze occupant, on film (YouTube).

I'm a little pissed because I'm reading a narrative that I trust a whole lot about some pretty amazing police misconduct, when what should pop across my social media feed but cops two towns up kickin' down doors and tazing people.

Yay for more cameras recording!

The Guardian has a rather average interview with Bill Gates, where he talks about his philanthropies and his relationship with Steve Jobs. What is interesting is the comments section, where the OS wars are still as hot as they were in 1999. One extremely long one considers Gates' attempts at curing malaria to be false, since he really should have been fixing Windows. Its rather amazing that these folks still talk about Bill in the same way they talk about Andrew Carnagie or John D. Rockefeller as complete predators, when Bill never had a striker shot, never evicted a widow from the company shack, or bribed a senator with watered stock. But I guess offending the fanboys is crime enough.

So wait, was the infiltrator also the bomber (again)? Is this what the DOJ is pissed at the AP for revealing?

This is fucking brilliant: Special Guest Edition: The Hawkeye Initiative IRL!:

I love my job. Our company in particular is great. Firstly, our game (HAWKEN) is beautiful and people love it. Secondly, half of our executive branch is female. Half of them are punk rock, and all of them are badassed. Our gender awareness standards, compared to the industry at large, are top shelf. We are talking Amelia Earhart in Atlantis, at a five star resort, getting a mani-pedi from Jensen Ackles. I have it good.

Except that the CEO has a framed piece of game promotion art, and... well... gets and graciously accepts a brilliant education in sexism.

Toll records can be used in civil court cases, like divorce cases.

In four of the 12 states, including New Jersey and Pennsylvania, highway authorities release E-ZPass records only in criminal cases. West Virginia parkways authority has no policy.

Which means that the remaining 7 are happy to offer up your travel records for civil actions.

Some how I missed this via Violet Impudence and saw it via Medley:

Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk. --Henry Jenkins

In 1946 there was a deep exploration of data mining, network privacy, internet porn, and all sorts of other details. No, I'm not talking about Vannevar Bush's As We May Think, this is A Logic Named Joe

.. She was blonde an' fatal to begin with. She had got blonder and fataler an' had had four husbands and one acquittal for homicide an' had acquired a air of enthusiasm and self-confidence. That's just a sketch of the background. Laurine was not the kinda former girlfriend you like to have turning up in the same town with your wife. ...

Via MeFi, the comment thread suggests that there's an audio version in the X Minus One singles.

Any Android developers out there available for a before-Thursday paid gig? Should be fairly simple dots on screen stuff.

Search Google for "Atari breakout".

Justice Department obtains a broad swath of AP phone records:

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.

If you called the AP during April and May 2012, you might wanna retain a lawyer. Allegedly this is over a May 7 2012 story about an airplane bombing plot that was foiled in Yemen, but...

"½ of all serious head injuries happen inside motor vehicles. If you drive a car, wear a helmet".

You have, at this point, seen astronaut Chris Hadfield singing David Bowie's Space Oddity on board the International Space Station.

Emm Gryner talks about the background and her involvement.

Moxie Marlinspike: A Saudi Arabia Telecom's Surveillance Pitch.

By the way, time to dig through and re-set up the infrastructure for encrypted email and do some key signing. I'm becoming aware of how much monitoring of net traffic there is, and how much of it is being done by nefarious entities in the guise of "anti-terror" activities.

Even yet more of that Walnut bracelet locket

Even more of that Walnut bracelet locket

More of that Walnut bracelet locket

Woodworker porn on the day is a table that becomes a desk with subtle compartments and workings.

An interesting lead from BoingBoing: A list of English words commonly misused in official translations of EU documents. Apparently a dialect of EU English is being created, but the problem is that some English words don't mean what the non-Anglophones think they mean. One can see the problem in a system dealing with at least 23 different tongues, but the main problem seems to be between the three power languages, English, French and German. The comments are particularly interesting, with Euro-functionaries talking about racing to get the first version out so they can control the eventual translation. I also still wonder where in Brussels you can find somebody who is bilingual in Estonian and Maltese.

http://idontwantyourfuckingapp.tumblr.com/