Flutterby™! From 2013-07-01 to 2013-07-31

RT Mike Godwin ‏@sfmnemonic:

'Could have prevented 9/11' is the new 'Hitler' | FP Passport http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/..._law_hitler#.UdC9F0_MWKo.twitter

[ related topics: Weblogs Invention and Design Dictators ]

Candidates strut their stuff at post DOMA pride parade:

“Weiner, Weiner!” the spectators chanted as they pushed against metal fences flanking the parade route while the former congressman walked down Christopher Street.

“We love Weiner and you can quote me on that!” shouted 25-year-old Justin Curtis after Mr. Weiner passed, flanked by a slew of supporters who followed in his footsteps, holding a “Weiner!” sign that stretched the length of the street itself.

Either the document revision numbers aren't ordered chronologically, or the order of the revision history table's list of changes is random.

[ related topics: Furniture ]

So first we had Vladimir Putin defending the U.S. on spying programs and crackdowns on domestic dissent (Previously), now we have some U.S. Conservatives praising Russia's crackdowns on gay rights.

Remember when supporters of the Soviet Union were harassed and run out of their professions?

In a sign of Russia's evolving stature among some U.S. social conservatives, the Illinois-based World Congress of Families plans to hold its eighth Advertisement international conference at the Kremlin's Palace of Congresses in Moscow next year. Past conferences in Europe, Mexico and Australia have brought together opponents of abortion and same-sex marriage from dozens of countries.

"The Kremlin used to be a no-no for conservatives," said Larry Jacobs, managing director of the World Congress. "We're going to redeem that building."

[ related topics: Politics Erotic Sexual Culture History Sociology Civil Liberties Conferences Archival Marriage ]

Friend needs help transporting a dog from just outside Colorado Springs to the Bay Area. Anyone in a position to help? Message me, please!

[ related topics: California Culture Dogs ]

The dark side of loyalty clubs and e-receipts: I just got an email informing me that Charlene bought a pillow and fabric dye...

Dick's Sporting Goods recently opened in Petaluma, to much fanfare. Charlene and I needed a soft-sided cooler, so we went to check out Dick's. A little while looking at Dick's and I realized that Dick's did nothing for me, so we went over to K-Mart. #yesIam13atheart

[ related topics: Bay Area ]

Next week I'm going to visit family. My nephews will be there. There will be a pond. We are already talking about making a boat. Easy $5 water guns seems necessary.,

[ related topics: Sociology Boats Machinery Guns ]

19 "hotshots" dead I tip my hat and bow my head in respect, with burning anger about the total lack of some wonderful connected technology calling in a life saving splash of water.

[ related topics: Pyrotechnics ]

Wow... Christians are not called to have amazing sex:

Sexual incompatibility, therefore, is a cross that some couples bear, and Christian communities could lighten this burden if we made an effort to put sex in its rightful place. If sex were viewed as a gift that, like everything else in this world, is marred by sin, it may be easier for couples to accept that bad sex is neither a reason for divorce nor an excuse to stop investing in a marriage. As with other trials, bad sex is an opportunity to rejoice in suffering (1 Peter 4:13) and to be further conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).

[ related topics: Religion Interactive Drama Erotic Sexual Culture Sociology Community Marriage ]

"Ed Snowden should seek asylum in the only place beyond U.S. law enforcement... Wall St."

[ related topics: Law Enforcement ]

A lot of people are forwarding around Salon: New data shows school “reformers” are full of it, that it's the economic status of the child, not the quality of the school, that leads to a child's success or failure in the education system.

Lots of questions this raises, and I was originally going to let it slide under the "school works as a filter system more than an education system", but this morning MeFi had an update to the "Stanford Marshmallow Experiment" which suggested that it isn't so much the willpower to resist eating that first marshmallow, but the trust that the second marshmallow will indeed be forthcoming.

The University of Rochester press release talking about Rational snacking: Young children’s decision-making on the marshmallow task is moderated by beliefs about environmental reliability, Kidd, Palmeri, Aslin (2012) summarizes:

Children who experienced unreliable interactions with an experimenter waited for a mean time of three minutes and two seconds on the subsequent marshmallow task, while youngsters who experienced reliable interactions held out for 12 minutes and two seconds. Only one of the 14 children in the unreliable group waited the full 15 minutes, compared to nine children in the reliable condition.

Or: If the person's experience is that, indeed, there'll be a payoff, they'll tough it out. If they don't, they won't. If we're looking for ways to nurture citizens who will help raise the society we share, there are probably some lessons about early childhood education here...

[ related topics: Children and growing up Interactive Drama Invention and Design History Current Events Television Education Salon magazine Economics ]

Confirming what we know from other sources: NY Times: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement.

Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, but that is only a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images.

[ related topics: Photography Software Engineering moron Law Enforcement ]

Hamster powered strandbeest walker, now with YouTube video.

Via JWZ.

[ related topics: Weblogs Video ]

New York Times points to the SWIFT project for tracking international money transfers as the way surveillance should be done, SWIFT: Big Brother with a Booz Assist, Only without the Paperwork points out that the auditors aren't necessarily independent, and that the U.S. has made a habit of making verbal requests so that there isn't a paper trail to audit.

[ related topics: Content Management Invention and Design Currency New York ]

Off to Weave Your Heart for 4 days of square dancing and sleep, in that order. Catch y'all on the flip side.

http://www.fightforthefuture.org/

Is fighting for the 4th amendment, on the 4th of July. Thou art invited to participate in this campaign in a multitude of ways.

[ related topics: Art & Culture ]

Queuing for the fun tour

[ related topics: Photography ]

First tip at Treasure Island

[ related topics: Photography ]

Surprise in the Castro

[ related topics: Photography ]

Pip organ in,the Castro theatet

[ related topics: Photography ]

Because what the world needs is more selfies of guys in drag...

[ related topics: Photography ]

An evening dressed up

[ related topics: Photography ]

Woke up late, 'cause I needed the sleep. A handful from Shadow before I head off to work:

• A proposed bike anti-theft device, alas I think most bike thefts occur outside of the view of the cyclist, but there's the germ of an idea here...
• An image of the results of a seagull/bike collision. Yuck.
• A gorgeous wooden bathtub which appears to be one of the Laguna Basic wood bathtub models.
• K/W Oktoberfest Traditional German Dancing to Du Hast (YouTube): Looks a little repetitive compared to modern Western square dance, but, yeah, that's about the speed of a good caller and dancers dancing at level.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Birds Bicycling Woodworking ]

Best baby shower cake ever

[ related topics: Photography Food - Cake ]

Moma Vujisic - Armchair air crash investigator - an early look at the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 Boeing 777-200ER crash at SFO this weekend.

[ related topics: Aviation Art & Culture ]

RT @emptywheel:

Apparently they don't charge illegal use of NCIC database as CFAA. http://bigstory.ap.org/article...-crooked-cops-abuse-fbi-database … 1 yr if a cop does it. 40 if Aaron Swartz does it

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Law Enforcement Databases ]

Recap of our weekend at the Weave Your Heart square dancing convention http://www.flutterby.net/2013-07-07_Weave_Your_Heart_recap

100 Year Old Granny Hilariously Derails Interview By Asking TV Reporter (YouTube).

[Edit: The inevitable MeFi link]

[ related topics: Technology and Culture Movies Television ]

Just because everyone is linking it: Gizmodo: Government [U.S. Department of Commerce] Destroys $170k of Hardware in Absurd Effort to Stop Malware.

[ related topics: moron ]

A Patriot Act History Lesson: How Prescient Warnings Were Mocked in the Senate

In 2006, Russ Feingold anticipated exactly how the government would stretch, exploit, and abuse vague language -- and was derided for it.

Secret Surveillance and the Crisis of Legitimacy:

The common thread underlying all of these deviations from political integrity and public consensus is unchecked official secrecy. Too much essential information on intelligence surveillance policy has been withheld from public access, thereby inhibiting public debate, precluding informed consent, and inspiring growing cynicism.

[ related topics: Politics moron ]

Remember when O'Hare had that great used bookstore you could browse for hours? Long gone, and our flight's delayed. Sigh.

[ related topics: Aviation ]

False positive on an SFO Pornoscanner revealed a gaping hole in those security theatre procedures. Eye-rollingly amazed once again.

[ related topics: Theater & Plays ]

Nephew is building a boat (with a little help)

[ related topics: Photography Boats Machinery ]

Revealed: how Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages. I understand the issues involved, and I'm very much a nationalistic patriot. But I'm not feeling the value proposition is sane and these beasts (Microsoft especially) should not be fed.

[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron Cryptography ]

Littlest nephew rowing the boat they helped build

[ related topics: Photography Boats Machinery ]

Will and Ethan carrying the boat to launch

[ related topics: Photography Space & Astronomy Boats Machinery ]

Hangin' out with family and ogling the cute chicks

[ related topics: Photography Sociology ]

Sometimes, I enjoy the created phrases such as Refrigerated Archipelago as much as the actual article. Other writers trick is a large part of the article is about and an excerpt from a Tom Wolfe novel. It is a short view into the infrastructure and logistics worth a pause.

[ related topics: Food Writing ]

Sunset last night over Michigan

[ related topics: Photography ]

Regex Based Crossword Puzzles are a fun, and insane way to tune up your regex skills. copied from Chattanooga Unix Gnu Android (and) Linux Users Group.

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source Chattanooga ]

Interesting. Gaping false-positive procedural hole at SFO "security" screening wasn't duplicated at Toledo Express...

My phone is toast. Replacement parts on order, but I'll be harder to communicate with for the next few. Email for best results.

Joe surprised me at work with a new Macbook Pro with the "Retina Display".. it's now tethered to 2 thunderbolts on my desk as well. I have to admit, size and pixels do matter.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Work, productivity and environment ]

Picture of the boat we built, with my sister Celia's paint job

[ related topics: Photography Heinlein Boats Machinery ]

NSA admits it analyzes metadata out to 3 hops from targeted people. How many people do you need to target to reduce six degrees of separation to three?

[ related topics: Politics Beer Social Software ]

Back from Ohio. Two from Shadow:

• Video allegedly from the handlebars of an electric sport motorcycle. I haven't found more, but looks like it's got some pretty impressive performance.
• Reddit: A friend just finished his first furniture range links to this Imgur photo gallery. I'm not a fan of the exposed edge plywood, but there are some interesting juxtapositions between the flat sheet goods and curved edges in that design.

[ related topics: Photography Movies Theater & Plays Graphic Design Video ]

Ride On finds that cyclists with ear buds can hear better than drivers with the radio on. They test both with a sound meter and artificial ear setup, and...

What was startling, however, was what could be heard from the car with its stereo on at what was perceived as a moderate level; (69dB). Our driver was unable to hear our tester, stationed 10 metres away, calling out “Passing”, or the bike bell. Without the car stereo on it was just possible to hear the call and bell; it registered at a similar level to having the in-ear headphones in.

Via I Bike Toronto: A cyclist with iPod hears better than a motorist driving.

[ related topics: Weblogs Automobiles Bicycling ]

Projection mapping on to a moving object (YouTube), or: A ball that objects to being hit with a paddle. Via JWZ.

[ related topics: Weblogs Movies Boats Maps and Mapping ]

Other way to read the "Senators reach deal to keep college loan rates low" is "Senators reach a deal to keep college tuition high". #bubble

[ related topics: Education ]

FOAAS - Fuck Off As A Service.

FOAAS (Fuck Off As A Service) provides a modern, RESTful, scalable solution to the common problem of telling people to fuck off.

Charlene has been getting into making small boxes. When we were in Ohio we stopped in at the Woodcraft there (the one in Santa Rosa closed, so we don't have a local one any more) and was looking at power carving options, for small tools that she can use to clean up the insides of solid boxes.

They had a couple of options, including two systems from WeCheer, one $160 kit that gets middling reviews, a $210 or so kit that could also use a reciprocating head that gets much better reviews, but neither has a router base for doing inlay.

Bishop Cochran Plunge Router Bases has router bases for a bunch of rotary tools.

[ related topics: Woodworking ]

RT Matt Stoller ‏@matthewstoller:

NSA: Snowden was a junior employee, and his revealed docs were unimportant. QED... Junior employee > Congress. http://mobile.businessweek.com...to-nsas-deepest-secrets-disputed

[ related topics: Politics Work, productivity and environment ]

Just paid $160 for pre-order on what's basically a super-accurate speed square. Will be second-guessing this purchase for a while...

[ related topics: Consumerism and advertising ]

RT Charles Stross ‏@cstross:

Alan Turing to receive posthumous pardon: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk-n...er-alan-turing-posthumous-pardon … (Now what about the 49,000 other gay men persecuted by the 1885 law?)

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Current Events Cryptography ]

CJ shared this on my Facebook wall, and I thought it well worth repeating here:

Ian Greenhalgh 'Last night, my wife and I were sitting in the living room and I said to her, "I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug." She got up, unplugged the TV and then threw out my beer.'

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Technology and Culture Theater & Plays Television Beer Marriage ]

A year or two ago, one of the kids from our Family Build Night crowd came down to my workshop to build a dollhouse. We did, and in the intervening time, when we've been trying to drag her to 4H, we've dropped by her house and seen that a few things we'd tried to enlist her parents' help to finish haven't yet gotten done.

I need to print out this page of pictures of a dollhouse that someone's little sisters built out of around-the-house household scrap and take it by.

Via Metafilter.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Photography Sociology Real Estate ]

Norwegian woman visits Dubai, reports rape, now faces prison sentence for sex outside of marriage and illegal consumption of alcohol. And frankly, I love y'all who live in flyover country, but I feel like this sort of thing is a threat every time I leave the Bay Area.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Theater & Plays Sociology California Culture Marriage ]

Slinging some C++. Amazing how a year and change doing Perl professionally has rekindled my respect for compiled static-typed languages.

[ related topics: Perl Open Source hubris ]

Pictures from yesterday's boat building with Scott Andrews at Petaluma's Rivertown Revival: http://www.flutterby.net/2013-07-20_Rivertown_Revival

Some pictures from Scott's comments over at the Wooden Boat forums.

[ related topics: Photography Boats Machinery ]

I've never used one of the many Windows 8 "touchscreen" laptops but I have to wonder... Apple took the touchscreen from a novelty to common-place and they make some of the best laptops. Why would the king of usability not make a laptop with a touchscreen? And is this part of Microsoft's problem?

I've always held that Microsoft doesn't differentiate their platforms better. Or rather, they don't differentiate them from a consumer perspective. And they try to eliminate differentiation form a programmer perspective. Unfortunately, they end up differentiated from a QA/Support perspective.

Sure, I can write code that runs on many platforms. But it only works on some of them. And only works well on one or, if I'm lucky, two.

I fear that Ubuntu is charging down the same path...

[ related topics: Apple Computer Interactive Drama Humor Microsoft Software Engineering moron Consumerism and advertising ]

U.K. government strong-arming ISPs on filtering and intercept technologies, and UK Prime Minister David Cameron announces that internet providers will "block porn" by default. Households will have to ask to actually get an internet connection.

In addition, the prime minister said possessing online pornography depicting rape would become illegal in England and Wales - in line with Scotland.

Which is the context for RT linkshund ‏@linkshund

Weird how we're criminalising consensual sex being portrayed as rape, when actually the major cultural problem is the opposite way round.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Erotic Sexual Culture moron Sociology Current Events Monty Python Net Culture ]

I'm The 14-Year-Old Who Wrote The "Jesus Isn't A Dick So Keep Him Out of My Vagina" Sign In Texas And Was Labeled A "Whore" By Strangers Online:

I'm going to be honest about what it feels like to be called that as a 14-year-old girl who has never had sex and who doesn't plan to have sex anytime soon.

I feel disappointed.

[ related topics: Religion Humor Erotic Sexual Culture ]

The Atlantic: The Vitamin Myth: Why We Think We Need Supplements looks at America's love affair with nutrition supplements, and Linus Pauling's role in convincing us that they were useful.

These findings weren't new. Seven previous studies had already shown that vitamins increased the risk of cancer and heart disease and shortened lives. Still, in 2012, more than half of all Americans took some form of vitamin supplements. What few people realize, however, is that their fascination with vitamins can be traced back to one man. A man who was so spectacularly right that he won two Nobel Prizes and so spectacularly wrong that he was arguably the world's greatest quack.

But note that there's a little bit of axe grinding here, the last sentence is:

... In 1994, Linus Pauling died of prostate cancer.

It should be noted that in 1994, Linus Pauling died at the age of 93 of prostate cancer.

[ related topics: Health Open Source Invention and Design ]

Planet Money: How Americans get to work in 2 graphs.

On surprising detail in the numbers: The share of workers who work at home is actually lower today than it was 50 years ago (4 percent today versus 7 percent in 1960).

My brain isn't in shape right now to try to correlate this with the "peak transportation" folks.

[ related topics: Photography Space & Astronomy Work, productivity and environment Currency Dictators Archival ]

Anti-news, but it never hurts to beat the drum: America Has a Stadium Problem.

[ related topics: Music Current Events Economics ]

New York Times public editor says that Nate Silver didn't fit into their culture. Ya know, if I was part of the NYT organization right now I'd be doing some serious soul searching about that...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Invention and Design Sociology California Culture New York ]

• FBI hair analysis may have falsely convicted thousands, including some on death row. Now if we can get a little light shone on the phrenology that is fingerprinting, and a bit more awareness of the issues with evidence chains and DNA data...
• “What Is That Box?” — When The NSA Shows Up At Your Internet Company.
• Al Qaeda militants flee Iraq jail in violent mass break-out.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Law Enforcement Television Net Culture ]

"Wait while I consult the Oracle." "You mean the MySQL?" "Another reason we should be using PostgreSQL."

[ related topics: Open Source Databases ]

Divers swimming near Humpback whales encounter what happens when you're in the middle of a bubble ring feeding pattern (YouTube) (Via MeFi).

[ related topics: Movies tolkien Food Birds ]

I thought we'd settled this decades ago, but: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result. It ain't crack, it's poverty.

To be fair, I thought that we'd settled it as "it ain't crack, it's nicotine", but I could easily see that being enough of a confounding factor that it'd be hard to factor out.

[ related topics: Current Events Gambling ]

Whoah: This is a fascinating little development: SanDisk has two new products which work as stand-alone WiFi hubs. The SanDisk Connect Wireless Media Drive is a 64gb streaming server with an 8 hour battery and an SDHC slot, the SanDisk Connect Wireless Flash Drive is a 4 hour battery WiFi shared storage device in a thumb-drive form factor.

I haven't yet quite put into words why I think this is important yet, but it sure seems like there's some sort of interesting model between tablets, phones and cameras that's trying to emerge here, and that will start to bypass the desktop/laptop computer paradigm that we've been used to...

[ related topics: Wireless Photography Invention and Design Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment ]

So Anthony Weiner's weiner is in the news again, which is largely a "who cares" except that @arcticwolfe pointed out this choice quote from the woman releasing the pictures and chats:

The woman, using the handle “Anonymous” said of Weiner, “The part that’s most annoying is that I was 22 years old and in a bad place, but if anyone asked him he would say the same thing about himself, yet he’s an adult.”

So the context is hard to suss out here, and frankly I'm not interested in diving into the whole sordid thing too deeply, but when did "22 years old" become "not adult"?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Photography Current Events ]

Alex Pareen takes down NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly's WSJ op-ed.

[ related topics: Fashion Salon magazine ]

To all the home automation kickstarters & crowdfunding pitches I get, I want 1 thing: docs on how *my code* talks to it. Gimme that, I'm in.

From coworker's cube heard synthesized female voice announce "incoming transmission": Moment of expecting auto parts crashing through roof.

RT Michael Hord ‏@uptownmaker:

Custom product we ordered from a Chinese supplier is already up on Alibaba- BEFORE we received ours. With our drawing on the page!

Best Pixar logo parody ever.

[ related topics: Pixar Animation Graphics ]

I have a new hero: Canadian man sorry for chugging eight beers and swimming to Detroit, and most of the way back before the authorities found him.

“If I’m going to be in the paper, I’d at least like them to say I actually made it, even though I got in trouble and everything,” Morillo, 47, said Tuesday. “I gotta pay fines and stuff. But I don’t want it to sound like I didn’t make it, because then my buddies are going to say ‘ha, ha, you didn’t make it.’ Because that was the whole thing, to show them I could do it.”

Note to friends: Don't say "there's no way you could do that" to bad-ass alcoholics.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Invention and Design ]

NTSB is smoking crack: Computer World: Feds want cars to talk to each other, riffing on this PDF report which pushes in its findings for:

Connected vehicle technology: Effective countermeasures are needed to assist in preventing intersection crashes—for example, systems such as connected vehicle technology could have provided an active warning to the school bus driver of the approaching truck as he began to cross the intersection. Although the bus driver was adamant in his postcrash interview that he had pulled forward sufficiently to see clearly in both directions, he failed to see the oncoming truck and proceeded into its path.

So, we'd need both vehicles to be equippped with properly working transponders which could notify either driver that the other driver was about to do something stupid, and...

And we need this out of vehicles that, in the case of the truck, didn't have properly functioning brakes, and in the case of the school bus, don't have the economics to support even basic safety improvements to the vehicles.

Yeah, I've got a friend who's deep in the process of quantifying V2V communications, and he does the major eye-roll when we talk about it. These problems are far better solved with passive systems, ones which warn the truck driver that he's exceeding sight-lines, that are enhancements on known technologies of lane deviation and follow distance warning systems.

Because by the time we have working V2V, we'll have autonomous vehicles anyway.

It's great that the NTSB wants to continue this boondoggle that's pushing so much money into the pockets of professors who are hiring undergrads to work for peanuts, but we should expect more critical thinking from our bureaucrats.

[ related topics: Drugs Children and growing up Law Current Events Work, productivity and environment Machinery Currency Economics Public Transportation hubris ]

Firearms aren't nearly as deadly as automobiles, thus the only way for cyclists to win by fighting back is to drive. #non-violentresistance

[ related topics: Automobiles ]

Barry Eisler: The Ministry of Truth. On having his essay on George Orwell's 1984 rejected by NPR for being "too political" because it pointed out that many major media pundits have been repeatedly wrong, and yet maintain their mouth

[ related topics: Politics moron Writing Journalism and Media ]

Shadow forwarded along a Daily Mail article about the Happy Seat vibrating bike seat from SexShop365.

Assorted press release rewrites:

• Huffington Post
• NY Daily News
• Laughing Squid

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Health Invention and Design Current Events Work, productivity and environment Pedal Power Bicycling ]

This looks like fun! The Cordless Canoe Challenge. Boats powered by cordless tools.

[ related topics: Boats Machinery ]

Columbine looks at what we know thus far about the Tumblr Yahoo-pocalypse.

Crap, first it was high levels of lead in Modena style Balsamic vinegars (which is why you see the California Prop 65 warning on that vinegar shelf at your grocery store), now it's high levels of lead in Mexican hot sauce.

[ related topics: California Culture ]

So is Layer 8 user error and Layer 9 politics, or vice-versa? #OSImodelsareimportant

[ related topics: Politics ]

RT Josiensor Josie Ensor

This is the funniest thing I've ever read in a guests' comments section @ The Maritime Museum's Space exhibition: http://pic.twitter.com/3WQo1eF7hN

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Photography Robotics Space & Astronomy Art & Culture Embedded Devices ]

Bot driven automated ticket scalping has come to restaurant reservations.

[ related topics: Weblogs Food Travel ]

Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) has classified evidence of wrongdoing by the financial elite:

However, the agency has classified the material as secret to safeguard individuals’ human rights and protect the “financial viability of major organisations by tainting them with public association with criminality”.

Yeah, heaven forbid that major criminal organizations involved in criminal activities be tainted with allegations of criminal behavior.

[ related topics: Current Events Civil Liberties ]

You know what I really love? Testing against a hardware config that someone else is randomly swapping stuff out on. Yeah. That.

RT Elf Sternberg @elfsternberg:

This is sodomy: Ezekial 16:49-50. http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=241623182

It should be noted that I'm not opposed to sodomy, but it is reasonable to look to the biblical origins of the term. And, for posterity, here's the passage in question:

This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.

[ related topics: tolkien Food Woodworking ]

Okay, I've been hearing good things, but now I'm going to have to go see Pacific Rim: Storming The Ivory Tower: The Visual Intelligence of Pacific Rim [warning: some potential spoilers]. Great essay on feminism, visual film, the Bechdel test, literature criticism and more.

[ related topics: Writing California Culture ]

Sex researcher Virginia Johnson, who collaborated with William H. Masters, dies at 88.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Health ]

I have avoided posting anything about the whole George Zimmerman killing Trayvon Martin thing because I largely didn't think I had anything to add, but two notes:

Juror B29 says that George Zimmerman committed murder, but not under Florida law. Yep, this is what being a juror is like.

Via Slate.

However, on the second day of deliberations, after spending nine hours discussing the evidence, Maddy said she realized there wasn't enough proof to convict Zimmerman of murder or manslaughter under Florida law.

And George Zimmerman didn't save a family from a burning car, he was invited to a photo-op. As you probably suspected.

[ related topics: Photography Sociology Automobiles Cryptography Fashion ]

Another reason to not store passwords in plain text: CNet: Feds tell Web firms to turn over user account passwords.

The problem with all of this secret surveillance is that it's having a chilling effect on data gathering: I'm seeing many systems where we're throwing away information that could potentially be useful to business processes in order to protect customers.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

Traditional gender rolls http://kylaiajmaa.tumblr.com/p.../i-made-traditional-gender-rolls

Wildcatting: A Stripper's Guide to the Modern American Boomtown.

Via MeFi.

[ related topics: Douglas Adams ]

British rail passengers demand the same environmental protections that farm animals get.

“I think it’s remarkable,” she said. “There should be some legal protection, it is rather unflattering that human beings are treated worse than animals.”

[ related topics: Law Current Events Civil Liberties Trains ]

When 'Smart Homes' Get Hacked: I Haunted A Complete Stranger's House Via The Internet:

[ related topics: Net Culture Real Estate ]

Eric Holder: Well, Maybe Just a Little Forced Nudity and Solitary Confinement… looks at Eric Holder's letter to Russian Minister of Justice Alexander Valdimirovich Konovalov regarding the extradition of Edward Snowden (PDF).

The comments go further.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Nudity Law Enforcement ]

Surprise! Not. Lawmakers who voted to maintain the NSA snooping receive double the defense industry cash from those who opposed it.

[ related topics: Currency ]

Looking at rotary power carving tools to replace my old Craftsman. Wecheer, Foredom, what else should we be looking at?

Am craving to play in shop on some projects and looking for things: Metals Depot - Not cheap, but not overpriced with a large selection of stuff for small fab needs. A selection of stainless and tool steel makes them unusual from the typical supplier. I was looking for SmallParts.com which now seems to go to Amazon Supply.

[ related topics: Books Cool Science ]

No Ammo for you assault weapon? No problem, you need the Rail Mount Chainsaw to handle the Zombie Apocolpyse.

While I find it humorous, What scares me is, someone must be buying these.

[ related topics: Humor Guns Trains ]

Holy crap @USPS is worthless. Yes, I know the package is lost in your Las Vegas facility. How in the hell do I get someone to care?

[ related topics: Gambling ]

Eating boysenberries by the handful. Life does not suck.

Shadow passed along one of those "I can't believe I didn't think about it first" ideas: Eric Buss' "Bubble Wrap Bike" (YouTube)

[ related topics: Movies Bicycling ]

The @USPS fiasco resulted in me saying "screw it, I'm upgrading." SAMSUNG galaxy S4 acquired. Reachable by phone again.

Still not sure how I feel about how Pacific Rim treated some of the tropes it played with, but I give it grudging respect...

[ related topics: California Culture ]

Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, offer him a fishing certification and he'll open up a consultancy without ever having seen a fish.

[ related topics: Food ]

The longer I live in the Bay Area, the more I feel reluctant to travel outside of it to places without the basic protections of law or civil liberties. Today's example: Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where sheriff's deputies are cruising and then arresting men who agree to consensual sex in private residences without the exchange of money.

Tommy Damico, a defense lawyer who represents the man arrested this month, said he had been prepared to challenge the attempted crime against nature charge under the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, which legalized same-sex sexual activity. Moore, however, said he has already decided formal charges will not be brought in the case.

“For the Sheriff’s Office to be setting these kinds of sting operations up is a waste of time because they can’t prosecute these things,” Damico said. “I think the statute itself has incredible problems.”

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Nature and environment Theater & Plays Law California Culture Currency ]

Some interesting pictures at Krebs On Security about what a modern credit card skimmer looks like.

[ related topics: Photography ]

The Economist language blog: True untranslatability has some interesting notes on languages and expressibility, and mentions Big Think: The Top 10 Relationship Words That Aren't Translatable Into English.

[ related topics: Weblogs Economics ]

70 year old 34 year court employee fired 9 months before retirement for pointing out the correct forms which got DNA testing that exonerated a man wrongfully convicted of rape:

“The document you chose was, in effect, your recommendation for a Motion for DNA testing that would likely be successful in this Division,” Byrn wrote. “But it was clearly improper and a violation of Canon Seven … which warns against the risk of offering an opinion or suggested course of action.”

[ related topics: Law Work, productivity and environment ]

Letter to Barack Obama from Edward Snowden's father and his legal counsel (PDF on MSNBC). I'll put the full text in the comments, it's worth a read.

[ related topics: Law ]

Jupiter structural layer cake.

Via JWZ

[ related topics: Weblogs Astronomy Food - Cake ]

So Eric Holder walks into an Apple store, and the guy working the genius bar is a blacklisted whistleblower....

[ related topics: Apple Computer moron Work, productivity and environment ]

"Fake" police pulling people over and robbing them in Detroit turn out to be real police (YouTube). Detroit News: Two police officers accused in Detroit robbery, assault. Detroit News: Detroit police sergeant arrested in armed robbery probe.

Edit: My Fox Detroit (source of the original video): Update: Police officers accused of armed robbery released

[ related topics: Movies Robotics Current Events Law Enforcement Embedded Devices Personal Lubricant ]

Word of the day: "paronomasiac" - "One addicted to word play or puns." http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/paronomasiac

Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book. Not just a good look at telecom company malfeasance, but also a good look at slicing and tranching Amazon reviews.

The book is Captive Audience, by Susan Crawford:

This important book by leading telecommunications policy expert Susan Crawford explores why Americans are now paying much more but getting much less when it comes to high-speed Internet access. Using the 2011 merger between Comcast and NBC Universal as a lens, Crawford examines how we have created the biggest monopoly since the breakup of Standard Oil a century ago. In the clearest terms, this book explores how telecommunications monopolies have affected the daily lives of consumers and America's global economic standing.

And if you didn't already know that political wrangling by the telecommunications companies in an attempt to keep their monopoly by social control rather than by technological innovation is what drives communications policy in the U.S., you should read it. You should also read Tim Wu's The Master Switch, 'cause this crap has been going on for a lot longer than Crawford's time period.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Books moron Consumerism and advertising Net Culture Economics ]

This weekend is the Lazy Bear Weekend up in Guerneville, and I'm going up as a part of the Redwood Rainbows to do some square dancing to try to recruit for the club.

But whenever I hear "Guerneville" and "bears", I think it'll be something like: Outdoor Wildlife Cam Captures a Veritable Bear Hoedown (YouTube direct link, for the archives).

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Movies Nature and environment Archival ]

Stupid paragraph OTD: "Detectives have tied at least some of the apparent burglary sprees to individuals or groups." http://www.petaluma360.com/art...-in-Petaluma-Sonoma-County&tc=ar

[ related topics: Community hubris ]

Okay, I didn't click on this the first umpteen times it showed up in my social media stream 'cause I thought the gag was over in the headline, but... Gawker: Video of Violent, Rioting Surfers Shows White Culture of Lawlessness. The comments are hilarious as well:

JohninLA: "Whenever I see a group of white guys in suits walking down the street, I involuntarily clutch my stock portfolio statements a little more tightly."

Via MeFi.

[ related topics: Sociology Journalism and Media Television California Culture Race Video Economics ]

U.S. Supreme Court: Berger v. United States - 295 U.S. 78 (1935):

The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all, and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the two-fold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor -- indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.

It is fair to say that the average jury, in a greater or less degree, has confidence that these obligations, which so plainly rest upon the prosecuting attorney, will be faithfully observed. Consequently, improper suggestions, insinuations, and, especially, assertions of personal knowledge are apt to carry much weight against the accused, when they should properly carry none. ...

[ related topics: Law ]

Surprisingly, Bradley Manning has been acquitted of "Aiding the Enemy". He was found guilty of almost every other charge and faces up to 120 years in prison. But the verdict in the basic treason charge bodes well for Edward Snowden.

RT ErosBlog Bacchus ‏@ErosBlogBacchus:

All those "youth" sex workers the FBI just "rescued" by handcuffing and hauling them away? About 1.38 per city. http://eminism.org/blog/entry/387

In our area, they apparently got 3 between the ages of 15 and 17, who'd either run away from home or left group homes. I'm never a fan of forced sex, but I'd really like to see us work on addressing this from a supply standpoint. It's quite conceivable to me that whatever circumstances they were in were better, to them, than the group homes or family lives that they left.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Weblogs Sociology Work, productivity and environment Law Enforcement ]

Now that it's an ISP, Google flip-flops on net neutrality.

Yet another DMCA abuser: @Rotolight used a fraudulent claim to take down a negative review: http://www.davelawlor.com/roto...ingement-on-review-it-didnt-like

I feel like there's some badge you should get the first time a Tweet hits 100 retweets...

The Atlantic Wire: The NSA's Best Defense of PRISM Didn't Even Last a Week. When the AP, that bastion of rewording press releases in order to insert typos, is taking down your claims, it's time to wrap it up and go home.

Greenwald in The Guardian: Revealed: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'. The program called "XKeyscore" allows analysts access to email content, not just metadata:

XKeyscore, the documents boast, is the NSA's "widest reaching" system developing intelligence from computer networks – what the agency calls Digital Network Intelligence (DNI). One presentation claims the program covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet", including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata.

And it allows that access without prior authorization.

[ related topics: broadband Software Engineering Net Culture ]

Your morning's shunga fix: Huffington Post: Japanese Erotic Art Goes On View At Sotheby's In 'Beyond The Paper Screen' (NSFW PHOTOS)

Mental Floss: 17 Euphemisms for Sex From the 1800s. (Via).

[ related topics: Photography Erotic Sexual Culture Art & Culture ]

Plainclothes officers stop and frisk NYPD's highest ranking uniformed black officer.

"How you can not know or recognize a chief in a department SUV with ID around his neck, I don't know," a police source said.

Which is, of course, a totally bullshit question. The real question is why cops are hassling people with dark skin color without reasonable cause.

[ related topics: Humor Law Enforcement ]

RT Jon Gilbert ‏@jong

Software Engineering Technical Debt Collection As A Service #kneecaps

[ related topics: Software Engineering ]

RT Trevor Timm ‏@trevortimm:

NSA chief: Analysts never misuse spy tools http://onforb.es/18N75I0

2009: NSA analyst reads Clinton's personal email http://bit.ly/16a71QB

[ related topics: Politics ]