Flutterby™! From 2014-07-02 to 2014-07-31

Square dance caller school is stretching my brain in heretofore undiscovered dimensions.

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

Coffee at Roula's Cafe, where that is indeed Roula chopping chicken behind the counter, and son running the register. Love places like this.

[ related topics: Food Sports Birds ]

An Icelandic vocal group entrances an entire train station with an ancient hymn.

[ related topics: Music Trains ]

The GCA 2014 square dance caller school attendees

[ related topics: Children and growing up Photography ]

The caller school square dance this morning had convention energy. Totally remember why we trekked here. Next three days will be amazing!

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

And I am now an official Callerlab member, with BMI and ASCAP licenses and everything! Woohoo! I'm legal!

[ related topics: Law ]

First fun badge tour stop at library square

[ related topics: Language Books Photography ]

Second stop at Heritage Park

[ related topics: Photography ]

[ related topics: Photography ]

Third fun badge tour stop is the big Mitt Romney boondoggle

[ related topics: Photography ]

After dancing at the capital

[ related topics: Photography ]

Gathering to dance at the old depot, now the gateway mall

[ related topics: Photography ]

And, appropriate to hanging out in Salt Lake City with a bunch of... uhhh... http://slightlywarped.com/crap...curiosities/2010/mormon_porn.htm

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Special shout-out to Dane from Philadelphia for his help reworking my choreography last night, and the square of volunteers who let me practice!

Convention non-staff caller schedule, with my 10:30 tip on it

[ related topics: Photography ]

Public transit is great in theory, but this is the second time UTA TRAX real time arrival data has been bizarrely wrong.

[ related topics: Public Transportation ]

Gotta say, per minute of walking, I have been directly panhandled more often in Salt Lake City than San Francisco

[ related topics: Bay Area California Culture ]

Request: Android calendar app that gets time zones right and syncs to Google or (preferred) self-hosted shared calendars.

Square dancers see this and think "sides face"

[ related topics: Photography ]

Hanging at the pool...

[ related topics: Photography ]

"Cell phones to be scrutinized by TSA": About accessing your data, not bombs. http://abcnews.go.com/US/cell-...crutinized-tsa/story?id=24445160

GNOME (et al): Rotting In Threes:

In the rush for Linux to become ‘popular’ and ‘make it into the desktop market’, maybe there is an unintended consequence. Not only are Windows users moving to Linux, but Windows devs seem to be arriving as well, bringing their diseases with them – corporate ‘kill off the competition’ mentalities that don’t serve Linux, merely exploit it.

Yes. I have been working towards expunging Gnome from my systems, especially the freakin' keyring manager, because it's buggy and awful. I used to be a fan of GTK, back when it was a crisp lean control/widget library, but now...

Ugh.

[ related topics: Language Free Software Books Microsoft Open Source Work, productivity and environment Economics ]

Meet the kGoal: A FitBit for your vagina.

the kGoal kickstarter.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

I have the feeling that I've accidentally closed off a tab or three and missed some, but:

• New gloves keeping bikers safe on the roads is basically an embed of Zackees turn signal gloves for cycling (YouTube).
• Cologne Germany police apologize for fining one armed man for cycling, they complained that his brake setup wasn't sufficient.

[ related topics: Movies Invention and Design Bay Area Law Enforcement Sports Pedal Power Bicycling ]

Waves of Grain (Vimeo video), a time lapse of a block of wood being planed down.

[ related topics: Video Woodworking ]

Crap. Two updates are apparently sitting on the laptop at home. Sorry, Shadow, I really do appreciate the links! Edit: Huh, wonder where they came from and why they were delayed?

Anyway, back from the 31^st IAGSDC convention at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City Utah (That's "SL,UT"). Amazing week, the GCA caller school with Tom Miller teaching, Michael Levy assisting, has stretched my brain in ways that'll take weeks or months to settle in, and my fellow students: Y'all are awesome and spectacular and I love you.

And the rest of the convention? Wow. What an amazing community. Today, Charlene is figuring out lodging for Saint Louis next year, and we're already signed up for Toronto in 2016.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Beer Travel Community ]

The Atlantic: Conor Friedersdorf: The Latest Snowden Leak Is Devastating to NSA Defenders:

But their narrative now contradicts itself. The Washington Post's latest article drawing on Snowden's leaked cache of documents includes files "described as useless by the analysts but nonetheless retained" that "tell stories of love and heartbreak, illicit sexual liaisons, mental-health crises, political and religious conversions, financial anxieties and disappointed hopes. The daily lives of more than 10,000 account holders who were not targeted are catalogued and recorded nevertheless."

[ related topics: Religion Politics Erotic Sexual Culture Health moron ]

Ferrett Steinmetz: You Get What You give: How A Potato Salad Can Teach You To Run A Good Donation Drive.

[ related topics: Food ]

RT Cait Sith Shryock ‏@ctshryock

OH:

> Works on my machine!

< Backup your e-mail, your machine is going in production

[ related topics: Spam Theater & Plays Work, productivity and environment ]

Go look at these pictures of Adolph Hitler practicing his poses and gestures for his speeches.

Then go read this comment by MeFi user MissySedai about a lesson as a U.S. exchange student in a German high school..

[ related topics: Drugs Children and growing up Photography Dictators ]

Bwahahahaha! 25 pictures of lesbian sex according to stock photography.

[ related topics: Photography Erotic Sexual Culture Economics ]

2,500-year-old erotic graffiti found in unlikely setting on Aegean island: Racy inscriptions and phalluses carved into Astypalaia's rocky peninsula shed light on very private lives of ancient Greece.

Gay porn has been around for two and a half millenia.

Via.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Bay Area ]

Sorry to any friends who use @Flickr, but I can't deal with Yahoo accounts again, so I'm going to abandon any connections still there.

Scholarly journal retracts 60 articles, smashes ‘peer review ring’

SAGE Publications busts “peer review and citation ring,” 60 papers retracted.

SAGE statement on Journal of Vibration and Control

[ related topics: tolkien Current Events ]

How come you can buy a pair of FRS radios for $30, but a standard 4 receiver Assisted Listening System bundle starts at $750?

More evidence that the CA system is broken: Emergency Windows update revokes dozens of bogus Google, Yahoo SSL certificates:

Thursday's unscheduled update effectively blocks 45 highly sensitive secure sockets layer (SSL) certificates that hackers managed to generate after compromising systems operated by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) of India. That's an intermediate certificate authority (CA) whose certificates were automatically trusted by all supported versions of Windows. Millions of sites operated by banks, e-commerce companies, and other types of online services use such cryptographic credentials to encrypt data passing over the open Internet and to prove the authenticity of their servers. As Ars explained Wednesday, the counterfeit certificates pose a risk to Windows users accessing SSL-protected sections of Google, Yahoo, and any other affected domains.

Should have probably revoked the cert of the intermediate CA a lot faster, but...

[ related topics: Microsoft Net Culture Cryptography ]

Xplain - an introduction to the X windowing system that uses an X server in your browser for demos.

A couple of years ago I was taking Amtrak to Fresno, and shared a table with two young ladies who were attired to shock, at least if one was a middle aged dude from the Central Valley, and after we established that I wasn't that, they introduced themselves as Juggalos, and we had a great talk about music and culture and belonging, and that informed some of my opinions about parenting (theirs) and life, and made the hours fly by.

It's easy to scoff at "...magnets, how do they work?", but I totally understand seeking an accepting family from a culture that has been treating you as an enemy since long before adolescence.

Anyway, this is a good rundown of some law enforcement idiocy around Juggalo culture.

http://www.symboliamag.com/what-is-a-juggalo/

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music Sociology Work, productivity and environment Law Enforcement California Culture Trains Public Transportation Furniture ]

Two more imgur links from Shadow:

• I made a "Bingo" card for the Comments section of any media story involving cycling/cyclists - Imgur
• Wall Clocks. A few neat ideas in there for some really simple woodworking.

[ related topics: Journalism and Media Sports Pedal Power Bicycling Woodworking ]

And we're settling in to an evening of exploring square dance calls, starting and ending formations, free hands, flow...

Email from whitehouse.gov, subject: "The President Is Listening". Well, so's the NSA, but that doesn't make me feel any better.

I'm coming to grips with my recent hobby/addiction: "preparing for Burning Man". The only cure is to "go". The trailer is already packed including some recent new gear including a 100 watt solar panel system, a Pelican Elite cooler, Jerry Cans... I'll even rationalize it's practical because this stuff is not in my way in the garage, because it is in the trailer. It's also sign of issues. Home life is pretty good, work life is stable (aka same stuff, different day) and this has become an outlet for my mind to chew on interesting things. I hope it's a healthy outlet.

[ related topics: Burning Man Photography Health Invention and Design Work, productivity and environment Archival Photovoltaics ]

Based on web sites and catalogs, bathroom faucet companies are actively trying to discourage me from buying any of their products.

Boysenberries are starting to come in!

[ related topics: Photography ]

More evidence based medicine: Slate looks at the recent study which is destroying the myth of the annual pelvic exam having any impact on mortality or morbidity.

Hacking Online Polls and Other Ways British Spies Seek to Control the Internet

The secretive British spy agency GCHQ has developed covert tools to seed the internet with false information, including the ability to manipulate the results of online polls, artificially inflate pageview counts on web sites, “amplif[y]” sanctioned messages on YouTube, and censor video content judged to be “extremist.” The capabilities, detailed in documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, even include an old standby for pre-adolescent prank callers everywhere: A way to connect two unsuspecting phone users together in a call.

As TechDirt puts it, Latest Snowden Revelations Suggest GCHQ Is Just Like 4Chan Trolls, But With More Firepower. And, really, if we look at the foreign policy of the major superpowers as informed by a bunch of asshole 5cr1pt k1dd13s... well... all of a sudden the 20th Century snaps into sharp focus.

The sad part is that we keep voting for assholes that leave these assholes in power.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Free Speech Net Culture Video ]

A cool Birthday Word Clock woodworking and Arduino project, by way of Shadow.

[ related topics: Woodworking ]

Rogers Cadenhead: M.C. Moewe and the Story That Got Away is an intro to a series of stories over at Daily Kos about mandatory reporters who've faced retaliation for coming forward with reports of sex abuse, and situations where children's reports of abuse are not taken seriously.

My reading so far is mixed. The Most Powerful Person in a Child Custody Case Isn't the Judge points out that the judges are often making decisions based solely on the decision of a single custody evaluator, and offers as an example:

The Seattle forensic psychologist Stuart A. Greenberg helped build the multimillion-dollar court expert industry of today.

In 2007, Greenberg committed suicide after being arrested for secretly filming people in his office bathroom. If his staff had not become suspicious of an air purifier, Greenberg would probably still be commanding $450 an hour to determine what's best for children in custody cases. He was a well-respected past president of the American Board of Forensic Psychology, helped develop a national certification exam for his field and taught training classes to other experts.

To a large extent this feels like some of the stories I read about foster families. I both know adults who have been through foster homes who campaign against the abuses of that system, and many of those abuses are particularly egregious, and then I also know foster parents who have dropped everything to go pick up a toddler from horrific circumstances because the kid needs a roof.

There's room for improvement, obviously, and we need more exposure and examination of the processes.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Interactive Drama Erotic Sexual Culture Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Weblogs History Law Current Events Currency Seattle ]

TextQL -Allows you to easily execute SQL against structured text like CSV or TSV.

SQLite for text files. In case any of y'all ever need to do reporting or summarizing of data delivered in field/comma separated structured text, or write out to it...

[ related topics: Law Databases ]

Lines of crow crap along sidewalks and across intersections are a pretty strong argument for underground utilities.

Wi-Fi Honk intervenes before cars hit pedestrians

Other systems that have tried to do something similar have relied on dedicated short-range wireless channels that have required specialised equipment. Wi-Fi Honk relies on putting extra information into the Wi-Fi beacons about the (Android) phone's position as determined by GPS, the speed from the phone's accelerometer and direction of travel (from its gyroscope). Phones send out these beacons every 100 milliseconds by default. Wi-Fi Honk picks up signals from other devices and then uses a collision prediction algorithm to work out whether a user needs to be warned about an approaching car or pedestrian. If a collision is expected, the app automatically generates alerts that are sent to drivers and pedestrians using vibrations, sound and on-screen messages.

Time to first parent being excoriated in the press because their kid's tricycle didn't have a phone running this in 3... 2... 1 ...

Edit: Bonus: LG unveils KizON for kids’ safety:

The wearable device designed exclusively for pre-school and primary school children provides real-time location information allowing parents to monitor their children on a compatible smartphone.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Wireless User Interface Current Events Work, productivity and environment Sports Automobiles Maps and Mapping Pedal Power ]

Why loyalty programs suck #8524: @OrchardSupply gives you 2% back, spot check suggests prices ~3.25% higher than Friedman's.

Read @JackWilliamBell's work so far on Closing The Circuit. Consider sponsoring him for Clarion http://www.jackwilliambell.com/?p=3833

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Anti-news: Study: Political journalists opt for stenography over fact checking during presidential debates.

A look at the Twitter usage of journalists during the 2012 campaign reiterates that we're getting recaps of what candidates said, not actual facts.

[ related topics: Politics moron Current Events Journalism and Media ]

I hate Elon Musk for PayPal and the whole Hyperloop thing, but it's hard not to like the guy for Tesla: Musk on why the new Tesla will be the "3" and not the "E":

“We had the model S for sedan and X for crossover SUV, then a friend asked what we were going to call the third car,” Musk told us. “So I said we had the model S and X, we might as well have the E.

“We were going to call it model E for a while and then Ford sued us saying it wanted to use the Model E – I thought this is crazy, Ford’s trying to kill sex! So we’ll have to think of another name.”

(Which was quoting from Auto Express: Tesla Model 3 to challenge BMW 3 Series - World Exclusive

[ related topics: Humor Erotic Sexual Culture Weblogs Invention and Design Automobiles ]

How do I get my Android phone to sync contacts and call logs to something I can develop with?

Trying to figure out wired smoke alarm options, seeing a lot of reports of false alarms. Anyone got experience with best devices?

Ugh. Fire detection. Matching building code requirements to product lines to what different vendors can get us just sucks.

[ related topics: Pyrotechnics ]

Fake screener probes passengers at SFO:

A man suspected of being drunk posed as a security screener at San Francisco International Airport long enough to direct a couple of women into a private booth for pat downs before real security staffers caught on to him, authorities said Wednesday.

TSA agent doesn't recognize DC license.

[ related topics: Weblogs Aviation Bay Area Current Events California Culture ]

Connecticut State Trooper admits to stealing $3,700 and a gold crucifix from a dying motorcyclist after being caught doing so by his dash cam. The deal allows him to get off with a 16 month prison term, rather than 10 years:

Huntsman walked out of the courtroom with a big smile on his face following the hearing. He declined comment.

A plea made under the Alford Doctrine means Huntsman didn’t admit his guilt but conceded there was a good chance he could have been found guilty of the crime if he went to trial. The judge then found him guilty.

Good on Assistant State’s Attorney Tiffany Lockshier for being willing to take this to trial, it's a shame the slimeball got off that easily.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Interactive Drama Weblogs Law ]

Level 3: Verizon's accidental mea culpa:

Verizon has confirmed that everything between that router in their network and their subscribers is uncongested – in fact has plenty of capacity sitting there waiting to be used. Above, I confirmed exactly the same thing for the Level 3 network. So in fact, we could fix this congestion in about five minutes simply by connecting up more 10Gbps ports on those routers. Simple. Something we’ve been asking Verizon to do for many, many months, and something other providers regularly do in similar circumstances. But Verizon has refused. So Verizon, not Level 3 or Netflix, causes the congestion. Why is that? Maybe they can’t afford a new port card because they’ve run out – even though these cards are very cheap, just a few thousand dollars for each 10 Gbps card which could support 5,000 streams or more. If that’s the case, we’ll buy one for them. Maybe they can’t afford the small piece of cable between our two ports. If that’s the case, we’ll provide it. Heck, we’ll even install it.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Weblogs broadband Invention and Design Law Woodworking ]

What happens in BioWare's Dragon Age 2 when you put the female protagonist animation cycles on the male protagonist model (YouTube)

via.

[ related topics: Games Animation Movies Video ]

Me, Piper Chapman, the Psych Ward, and the Incarcerated 2.2 Million

Attention drivers: If you complain about cyclist behavior, I can assume you are a reckless asshole unaware of your driving incompetence.

Watched some seriously clueless drivers this morning. And Shadow sent me a link that's a first person account of getting run over, I thought it was a little thin for a post and have been saving up bicycle disaster notices and now I'm thinking that maybe wallowing in all that driver hate isn't a good idea...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Shadow forwarded along: I bought an 8ft long, 4ft wide, 12/4 thick slab of Bubinga... this IS that story.

Yeah, it's basically just wood porn, a love story to a 4x8 foot slab. I drooled.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Woodworking ]

Study: Rhode Island accidentally decriminalized prostitution, and good things happened:

More surprising was the finding that forcible rape offenses fell by 31 percent in Rhode Island from 2004 to 2009, as decriminalized indoor sex work scaled up in the state. This translates to 824 fewer reported rapes. The majority of the reduction in rapes came from Providence, where the state's sex work is concentrated.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Work, productivity and environment ]

Over 65 lines of boilerplate to set up a Perl module under this framework. Suddenly I know how the Cobol folks feel.

[ related topics: Perl Open Source hubris ]

Verizon to Netflix: Slow. Verizon through VPN to Netflix: Fast #netneutrality http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Verizon-Fios-Netflix-Vyprvpn.html

A People's History of Tattoine https://storify.com/tcarmody/the-people-s-history-of-tattooine

For all the ways that EZPass fails, that you have to have a balance > $10 to close your account is probably the stupidest.

Am exploring retooling my productive coding environment, again. One driving factor is updating everything to the "improved" MySQL connectors in PHP, or using a database abstraction layer to be able to support MySQL/Maria 5.6 or other databases. Another is better supporting some of the good stuff in HTML5. I've been browsing various PHP frameworks this morning and I still find them overly abstract. I might as well learn a new language as well. Am seriously considering writing, from scratch, again, everything.

How often do most of you "retool"? ie: Start over with the same tools using what you have learned, or with a completely new language/toolset?

Or maybe I can make a living as a metal sculpture artist?

[ related topics: Open Source Nature and environment Invention and Design Software Engineering Writing Work, productivity and environment Art & Culture Databases ]

It's just eight o'clock & I'm already into thinking about ripping out & replacing all the stuff the contractor who worked on this last did.

I know I have whined before, but: FU engineers who spec 50 in/lbs on pot metal bolts w/straight cut screwdriver slots in electrical panels.

[ related topics: Fabrication Gambling ]

New Republic: The Russian Public Has a Totally Different Understanding of What Happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. On how the Russian media are promoting conspiracy theories about the shooting down of that flight, and how that's impacting attitudes around Putin and response from the rest of the world.

Also worth thinking about how media outlets everywhere are probably doing similar things, ie: the various changing headlines and reframings of what's happening between Israel and Gaza right now.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Aviation Journalism and Media Conspiracy Government ]

I am actually generally a fan of automated traffic enforcement. However: Chicago Tribune: Red light cameras tag thousands for undeserved tickets: Analysis of 4 million violations recorded since 2007 reveals suspicious patterns at dozens of intersections, raises questions about system's management.

Seems like two issues: First, this "partner with an outside company, they share the profits", rather than "buy the damned things like we do signals" is fraught with motivation for fraud.

Second: People in positions of law enforcement power, be they police officers or bureaucrats changing light timing and sensors, need to be held accountable to very high standards.

ie: This is the sort of thing that should have a guilty party looking to flee the country because life as an international fugitive is better than the punishment for trumping up a few quarters worth of reports.

[ related topics: Photography Current Events Law Enforcement ]

CUNY Professor Throws Shade on the Whole Damn System, Man: Epic resignation letter from a very disgruntled teacher.

I'm predisposed to agree with the critiques of the system, but there could be some hyperbole here. However, I hope this is so well written I really hope it leads to a book deal.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Books tolkien ]

RT Derek Willis ‏@derekwillis:

Whenever I get too proud of myself, I remember that Lucy Morgan's reporting in 2 FL counties sent 250 ppl to jail: http://www.cjr.org/united_stat...orida_newspaper_hall_of_fame.php

That is real journalism.

[ related topics: Journalism and Media ]

It's good to see that reckless vehicle operators are getting charged. Now if we can get reckless motor vehicle operators charged... Court rules that even on a bicycle, it's reckless driving.

Velasquez's lawyer sought to have the charge dismissed and said bicycles aren't considered vehicles under California's traffic laws. The defense cited a law that defines a "vehicle" as a device that can carry a person or property on a roadway, "excepting a device moved exclusively by human power."

The court found that a 1982 law determined that a bicycle operator "has all the rights and is subject to all the provisions applicable to the driver of a vehicle." Which we know isn't true, but worked for the sake of this argument. But it is interesting that we have this place carved out for vehicle operation, rather than "dude got drunk and attacked somebody". Seems silly that the law carves out categories for what weapon the drunk was wielding.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Law Current Events Civil Liberties California Culture Guns Pedal Power Bicycling Government ]

My Uber got pulled over by the Denver police — and then things got really weird.

Did I really want to take a ride from an individual who clearly lied to me, then was evasive when I asked one basic question?

Believe me, this is not an easy thing to do when we are taught as youngsters to respect authority, the uniform, the badge, the gun (which was clearly visible in his holster).

I’m proud of my decision. I’m proud of my Uber driver (he was very professional, honest and calm).

[ related topics: Law Enforcement Guns Bicycling ]

Government agents 'directly involved' in most high-profile US terror plots:

The lengthy report, released on Monday by Human Rights Watch, raises questions about the US criminal justice system's ability to respect civil rights and due process in post-9/11 terrorism cases. It portrays a system that features not just the sting operations but secret evidence, anonymous juries, extensive pretrial detentions and convictions significantly removed from actual plots.

[ related topics: Movies moron Law Enforcement Civil Liberties Gambling ]

RT @hackneymarshman (Gareth E. Rees):

Sign warns cyclists about itself http://t.co/Uf9s7eXzdn

[ related topics: Photography Archival ]

Arizona’s Checkpoint Rebellion: Liberals, libertarians, retirees, and activists protest against immigration patrols far from the border.

“I am not politically active,” says Richard Rynearson during a Skype call from South Korea. “I am a military officer, and I took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States from foreign and domestic enemies. When I am deployed I focus on foreign enemies, and when I am here, I focus on the domestic ones.”

Via MeFi.

[ related topics: Politics Law Current Events Civil Liberties ]

Just closing off a few tabs from Shadow:

• In which I am pancaked, in which a cyclist writes about being run over by a driver running a stop sign.
• Cow drama strikes during cycling event, in which a cow charges cyclists.

[ related topics: Current Events Sports Pedal Power Bicycling ]

MTV: Galaxy Quest: The Oral History. 15 years later.

[ related topics: tolkien Current Events ]

Wat? Fuuu... broke something.

Wat, take 2

Not generally a Rand Paul fan, but: reforming civil asset forfeiture! http://www.paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1204

[ related topics: Politics ]

A great look at our gas tax vs infrastructure spending: http://www.strongtowns.org/jou...on-the-gas-tax.html#.U9FtnvFEpOh

[ related topics: Politics ]

I don't wanna say anything about parenting styles, but... 8 year old Minna Stess drops in on the MegaRamp at Woodward West in Tehachapi.

... When she was 3, she went to see the X Games 3D movie and saw Burnquist riding the MegaRamp at his house. As soon as she saw it, Minna poked her mom and said, "I want to do THAT!" ...

(Connection: She's a Petaluma resident.)

[ related topics: Games Movies Graphics Bicycling Real Estate Woodworking ]

Grrr: CMSs which think quotes are anything other than ASCII 34, and source code.

[ related topics: Quotes Open Source ]

Now the RV is ready for a trip across country to Burning Man. None of the mechanical or electrical stuff matters compared to adding a smidgen of whimsey. Nancy had a great time putting on these stickers from Hippie Motors.

[ related topics: Burning Man Photography Travel Archival ]

Still need to do stapling and put in a bunch of receptacles, but running wires and cutting holes for the new electrical is done!

[ related topics: Invention and Design Sports ]

Long day at a square dance caller workshop in the south bay. Home, with no energy for rewiring...

[ related topics: California Culture ]

Harvard Business Review: The Evidence Is In: Patent Trolls Do Hurt Innovation.

[ related topics: Intellectual Property ]

Conceding that in a world gone mad, sanity is still defined by the majority: installing the electrical sockets with the ground pin down.

New circuits and receptacles are live! Still need to staple in the crawlspace and patch plaster, and install the smoke & CO alarms...

[ related topics: Invention and Design Theater & Plays ]

RT Mario Fusco ‏@mariofusco:

TDD replaces a type checker in a dynamically typed language in the same way that a bottle of whisky replaces your daily problems

RT Charlotte ‏@chazzy_bbz

Two women walk into a bar, one says "you heard of the Bechdel test?", the other: "yeah my boyfriend told me about it the other day..."

(ref for the clueless)

RT Brandon Jones ‏@Tojiro:

Time travel will never be a thing, because otherwise masses of confused time travelers would have appeared at midnight on Jan 1, 1970.

As if you needed more reasons to be skeptical of sportsball (in this case soccer): Workers Who Built Qatar's World Cup HQ Haven't Been Paid In A Year:

The situation for migrant workers in Qatar, which one international organization believes will result in more deaths than 9/11, doesn't appear to be getting any better. The Guardian, which has been all over this story, has a new report on migrant workers who have not received payment in over a year and have been living in roach-infested flophouses.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Invention and Design Law Sports ]

Gas station clerk with MMA training surprises thieves. Because some times ya need a little heartwarming surveillance video in your life...

[ related topics: Current Events Video ]

Larry social mediad this, need to read further: Applied Economics Letters: An examination of the effects of concealed weapons laws and assault weapons bans on state-level murder rates:

The purpose of the present study is to determine the effects of state-level assault weapons bans and concealed weapons laws on state-level murder rates. Using data for the period 1980 to 2009 and controlling for state and year fixed effects, the results of the present study suggest that states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons had higher gun-related murder rates than other states. It was also found that assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level. These results suggest that restrictive concealed weapons laws may cause an increase in gun-related murders at the state level. The results of this study are consistent with some prior research in this area, most notably Lott and Mustard (1997).

[ related topics: Guns Economics Model Building Government ]

From Shadow, as well as my daily comic reads, yesterday's Sinfest has flutterbies!

Forbes: How Manufacturer-Funded Research Compromises Patient Care is a rehash of things I swear we've seen before, but it mentions:

• Industry sponsorship and research outcome, Andreas Lundh, Sergio Sismondo, Joel Lexchin Octavian A Busuioc, Lisa Bero
• The influence manufacturers have on negative-pressure wound therapy research., Kairinos N, Pillay K, Solomons M, Hudson DA, Kahn D.
• Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery: June 2014 - Volume 133 - Issue 6 - p 1328–1334: The Impact of Conflicts of Interest in Plastic Surgery: An Analysis of Acellular Dermal Matrix, Implant-Based Breast Reconstruction, Lopez, Joseph M.D., M.B.A.; Prifogle, Erin B.S.; Nyame, Theodore T. M.D.; Milton, Jacqueline Ph.D.; May, James W. Jr. M.D..

[ related topics: Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Health ]

Making a giant spirograph.

reddit link with some text.

Via MeFi.

Thinking about modal separation (light rail, bus rapid transit, HOV lanes) in light of problems with bicycling in automobile traffic...

[ related topics: Sports Automobiles Trains Pedal Power Bicycling Public Transportation ]

Vox: A stunning graph on how money polarizes politics. Which isn't really that stunning, we promote a cause when we believe in it:

Via an Ezra Klein tweet.

[ related topics: Politics Photography Currency Archival ]

Daily Dot: I accidentally started a Wikipedia hoax, on how a couple of stoned pranking teenagers changed the history of Amelia Bedelia forever, and why you should never look to Wikipedia as a primary source (and vet the sources it references).

When I spoke to my co-author Evan on the phone the other night, he admitted he shared my guilt. “I guess I do kind of feel bad now that I know it’s been up for so long, and so many people repeated it,” he said. “We were just doing it because it was funny. And it was. It was really fucking funny.”

[ related topics: Drugs ]

Birthday bash to celebrate laser inventor Charles Townes’ 99th:

Only now nearing retirement – he plans to shutter his physics department office this summer, but will continue to make daily visits to his office at UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory – Townes’ career highlights include a 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the laser ...

[ related topics: Bay Area Space & Astronomy ]

WNYC: Why Hoboken is throwing away all of its student laptops. Yet another technology in education boondoggle.

I'd say "failed", but it probably succeeded in getting some school administrators wined and dined, and transferred taxpayer dollars to private vendors, so considered in that light it was successful.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Education ]

RT Quinn Norton ‏@quinnnorton:

Those who would trade security for “security” have not being paying enough attention to this NSA bullshit.

RT 000___000:

no one expected everything to become post-apocalyptic quite so gradually.

RT Phil Shapiro ‏@philshapiro

There's a new iPhone app that turns your bank account into Apple's bank account.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Invention and Design iPhone ]

RT Zack Williams ‏@zdw:

Let's start calling the Root SSL Cert lists what they really are - lists of who is allowed to MITM our SSL connections.

Johnny Dronehunter: Defender of Privacy - Official Trailer feat. Salvo 12 Shotgun Silencer (YouTube):

It will take a determined man and an unequaled weapon to make a stand. And explosions. Yeah, lots of explosions.

[ related topics: Privacy Guns ]

Remember when CIA Director John Brennan said that the CIA hacking into Senate computers was "beyond the scope of reason"?

"We are not in any way trying to thwart the [Senate Intelligence Committee] report's progress [or] release," Brennan told NBC's Andrea Mitchell at a Council on Foreign Relations event. "As far as the allegations of the CIA hacking into computers, nothing could be further from the truth."

Yeah. CIA improperly accessed Senate computers, agency finds:

Findings of the investigation by the CIA Inspector General’s Office “include a judgment that some CIA employees acted in a manner inconsistent with the common understanding reached between SSCI (Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) and the CIA in 2009,” CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said in a statement.

[ related topics: Politics Work, productivity and environment ]

A video of Ivory Coast cacao farmers tasting chocolate has been making the rounds. MeFi user ChuraChura goes off on it:

I find this video pretty distasteful (and that's aside from the link between cacao plantations in Cote d'Ivoire and child slavery).

I work in southwestern Cote d'Ivoire, just on the border of Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia. The men I employ are largely cocoa farmers, when they're not in the forest taking complex observational data on primate behavior and ecology.

Well worth the read.

[ related topics: Health Current Events Work, productivity and environment Chocolate Race Video ]

Airdog auto-follow quadcopter for GoPro camera - first look. Put on a location transmitting bracelet, thing follows and videos you.

Presumably follows you and videos you while you do stupid shit likely the injure you.

No news as to whether said transmitting bracelet will also automatically alert emergency services.

http://www.airdog.com/

[ related topics: Photography Current Events hubris ]

Grrrr: Web shopping cart timeouts should be measured in *days*. Not minutes.