Flutterby™! From 2014-12-01 to 2014-12-31

Chicago Public Schools’ $100 Million Swaps Debacle Demonstrates High Cost of High Finance is a run-down on a series in the Chicago Tribune (that isn't loading for me, dear legacy papers: if you want the ad views, make the web site work) looking at the chain of events that led from a little clause that snuck into Illinois state law in 2003 to the Chicago Public Schools issuing a billion dollars in bonds, hiring a banker to produce a document which claimed the city could save $90M over the life of the bonds, but this was back in the noughties when bankers were claiming everything silly, so....

yep. Cost 'em over $100M.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Interactive Drama Work, productivity and environment Economics Archival ]

Contra Costa Times: Use of deadly force by police disappears on Richmond (California) streets. On how officer training and police department attitudes have improved the situation there:

"We had generations of families raised to hate and fear the Richmond police, and a lot of that was the result of our style of policing in the past," Pickett said. "It took us a long time to turn that around, and we're seeing the fruits of that now. There is a mutual respect now, and some mutual compassion."

[ related topics: Invention and Design History Current Events Law Enforcement California Culture ]

RT Taras Grescoe ‏@grescoe"

Distracted driving smoking gun: car crashes went down 40% in Abu Dhabi during 3-day Blackberry outage http://bit.ly/1HRylHt

The link is Wired: Car crashes in the UAE fell during Blackberry outage:

According to state-owned newspaper The National, there were 20 percent fewer accidents in Dubai and 40 percent fewer accidents in Abu Dhabi during the three days when BlackBerry services were down.

And, yes, the article does know that correlation is not cause and points to Daniel Simons talking about how variable the rates are.

[ related topics: Drugs Current Events Journalism and Media Law Enforcement Automobiles Guns ]

If you don't know that monoids are endomorphisms, and that a monad is just a monoid in the category of endofunctors, it's worth reading Functional Programming Patterns (BuildStuff'14) slide deck.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Software Engineering ]

Interesting that Perl 5.10's substr() on large (100M) utf8 strings is *way* slower than 5.8's (and, yes: The code was doing it wrong.)

[ related topics: Perl Open Source hubris ]

To be figured out shortly:

Emacs Websocket library

Emacs Realtime Markdown Viewer.

[ related topics: Language Books ]

Killings by Utah police outpacing gang, drug, child-abuse homicides:

In the past five years, more Utahns have been killed by police than by gang members.

Or drug dealers. Or from child abuse.

And so far this year, deadly force by police has claimed more lives — 13, including a Saturday shooting in South Jordan — than has violence between spouses and dating partners.

Note that the cops killing more people than intimate partner violence is a this year thing.

[ related topics: Health History Current Events Law Enforcement ]

RT Paul Elard Cooley ‏@paul_e_cooley:

My next "fantasy" novel will revolve around a world where justice and equality are actually expected, respected, and ubiquitous.

[ related topics: Erotic Political Correctness Law Enforcement ]

For digging into later: The Ferguson Grand Jury Evidence: Every Document, Every Report, Every Witness Testimony, It’s All Here!

Someone's repurposed Jeri Ellsworth's modern C64 design to make a Commodore 64 netbook/laptop.

[ related topics: Graphic Design ]

A flash mob I can get behind: Romance with no pants VH1 ad (Facebook video)

Looks like same video on YouTube.

[ related topics: Clothing Video ]

Huh. The etymology of "involved" and "vulva" may indeed go back to common roots...

[ related topics: Language ]

Whoah: Duktape is an embeddable JavaScript engine, C source:

Embeddable, portable, compact; about 210kB code, 80kB memory, 40kLoC source (excluding comments etc)

In case you need an embedded control language... And Node is too heavyweight...

[ related topics: Robotics Law Machinery Embedded Devices ]

Department of "Duh": Ars Technica: Sites certified as secure often more vulnerable to hacking, scientists find.

Department of "Duh": Ars Technica: Sites certified as secure often more vulnerable to hacking, scientists find.

Coworkers are experimenting with @PagerDuty app. When an alarm goes off, I keep thinking I need to grab a space suit for hull breach drill

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy ]

For profit college used exotic dancers to recruit students http://www.sfgate.com/news/cri...ers-to-lure-students-5934231.php

[ related topics: Children and growing up Sexual Culture Current Events Education ]

"Deathring" malware found pre-installed on low-end smartphones in Asia and Africa.

How police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street.

[ related topics: Politics Law Enforcement ]

Anyone in Santa Rosa: Lunch today? Probably pupusas at W. College & Marlow at noon.

[ related topics: Education ]

NFL logos as dicks

[ related topics: Sports ]

RT Nein. ‏@NeinQuarterly:

But we gave you no justice. We gave you no peace. Now what do you want?

[ related topics: Law Enforcement ]

San Francisco cops guilty on Federal corruption charges:

Per the indictment, the officers were accused of, essentially, running a dope ring out of Mission Station; raiding the evidence room and shaking down suspects for electronics, gift cards, drugs, and other goodies.

On the one hand, the panopticon sucks, on the other hand without cheap surveillance cameras it wouldn't have been possible for San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi to post YouTube videos of the corrupt members of the San Francisco Police Department operating in the Henry hotel.

[ related topics: Drugs Photography Health tolkien Bay Area Current Events Law Enforcement California Culture Sports Travel Race Video ]

Looks like the Nashville, TN police department has its collective head screwed on right! http://www.tennessean.com/stor...se-ferguson-protesters/19593023/

[ related topics: Ziffle Law Enforcement Aviation - Helicopters ]

Talk of "preserving venerable institutions": Presumably this means canning them with sugar and pectin.

First coat of Redgard on, much thinner than I expected.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Stringtown Ramblers at Aqus Cafe

[ related topics: Photography ]

Stringtown Ambassadors at Aqus

[ related topics: Photography ]

More Stringtown Ambassadors

[ related topics: Photography ]

Video or it didn't happen: Stringtown Ambassadors at Aqus: http://youtu.be/Nv37wawnvvU

[ related topics: Video ]

Third coat drying, after running some numbers on film depth the coverage claimss are bogus, and we'll tile after this

[ related topics: Journalism and Media Sports ]

Dialing in the saw

[ related topics: Photography Woodworking ]

Two tiles down, I don't wanna think about it to go

[ related topics: Photography ]

We're slowly figuring pout what we're doing. Next time: 6" white ceramic tiles. Period.

[ related topics: Photography Race ]

Kinda proud of that notch...

[ related topics: Photography ]

Gotta be a use for these. Maybe the hot water recirculator control buttons?

[ related topics: Photography ]

The singularity will be started by people who pay to do it as a hobby, but eventually will be advertiser supported as "free" service.

[ related topics: Consumerism and advertising ]

Gonna be pimping authors for Xmas gifts: A review of John Sundman's "Acts of the Apostles" for your perusal: http://smile.amazon.com/review...rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B003NX7MGQ

[ related topics: Books ]

Paper mill uses an 8 gauge shotgun for breaking up calcium carbonate chunks, 3" zinc slugs with 8671 ft-lbs of muzzle energy.

[ related topics: Woodworking ]

Painstaking work cutting and fitting...

[ related topics: Photography Work, productivity and environment ]

My brain: the "Convoy" earworm would be perfectly awful without hearing "Tomboy" in it. "Mercy sakes alive, looks like we got us a..."

Plotting out the soldier strips

[ related topics: Photography ]

Pausing here to let mortar dry

[ related topics: Photography ]

Ordering epoxy grout. HomeDepot had half the bits, Lowes had the other half, but Amazon let me add all the parts to my cart with one click

[ related topics: Books ]

RT Dion Almaer ‏@dalmaer:

"compiling a C program from 20+ years ago is actually a lot easier than getting a Rails app from last year to work" https://passy.svbtle.com/building-vim-from-1993-today

[ related topics: Software Engineering Work, productivity and environment ]

RT Harold Itzkowitz ‏@HaroldItz:

The people smashing windows at Radio Shack in #Berkeley are the first people who have gone into Radio Shack in years

[ related topics: Microsoft Bay Area ]

Because we need to buy airline tickets shortly: The best time to buy airline tickets is on Sunday 57 days in advance.

[ related topics: Aviation ]

Google has been on a real estate shopping spree. The hypothesis is that Google will add staff to occupy the space. I wonder if Google figured out that DeMarco and Lister were right all along and they need the real estate to provide actual offices to their existing staff.

[ related topics: Books California Culture Real Estate ]

Giggle: CHP email says "Call 911 to report drunk/dnagerous driving!" Think someone might have been drinking and typing there...

[ related topics: Humor ]

One of the issues I have with giving police leeway for excessive violence or intimidation is that it lessens the authority of and respect for the police: Blue just becomes another gang color, and one that's not a part of the community. The CIA torture report shows that this culture of confusing violence and intimidation with respect isn't just a problem at a local level, it's a problem internationally. Never mind hiding troops in ambulances, rape and torture are not behaviors of civilized nations.

• http://www.vox.com/2014/12/9/7360823/cia-torture-roundup
• http://www.theguardian.com/us-...ia-senate-intelligence-committee
• http://www.theguardian.com/us-...c/09/cia-torture-report-released

MeFi thread.

[ related topics: Sociology Law Enforcement Television California Culture Community ]

Illinois Just Made it a Felony for Its Citizens to Record the Police and the Media is Silent.

[ related topics: Journalism and Media Law Enforcement ]

RT Malcolm Harris ‏@BigMeanInternet:

Consider using Youtube's face-blurring tool before you upload protest vids http://www.wired.com/2012/07/youtube-face-blurring/

[ related topics: Civil Liberties ]

So the difference between ISIS and the CIA is apparently that the CIA was doing it first, and tried to keep it secret.

Reminder: Among other things, torture led to the false data that got us into Iraq in the first place: https://www.emptywheel.net/201...re-were-not-having-exploitation/

Richmond Police Chief a prominent participant in protest against police violence http://www.insidebayarea.com/w...articipant-local-protest-against

http://wn.ktvu.com/clip/109332...for-justice#.VIfXTuMa-5w.twitter

[ related topics: Law Enforcement Civil Liberties ]

John McCain makes passionate defense for torture report's release.

Yes. We have due process and the rule of law for a reason. Pretending that somehow these things should only apply to some citizens, based on the beliefs of a group of rogue psychopaths, is bad for us as a nation. It's already resulted in bad intelligence that's guided policy in ways that have harmed the United States irreparably. Torture is witch-finding, and we should have left that behind back in the 1600s.

[ related topics: Politics ]

Snicker: Keurig 2.0 Genuine K-Cup Spoofing Vulnerability:

Since no fix is currently available, owners of Keurig 2.0 systems may wish to take additional steps to secure the device, such as keeping the device in a locked cabinet, or using a cable lock to prevent the device from being plugged in when not being used by an authorized user.

[ related topics: Home Improvement ]

[ related topics: Photography Archival Food - Cake ]

If you haven't been watching what's been happening with the U.K. porn laws, you should, but: Porn protest: Mass 'facesitting' and sex simulation to take place outside Parliament.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Erotic Sexual Culture Civil Liberties Government ]

Rainageddon is hitting the North Coast already: http://lostcoastoutpost.com/20...images-rainageddon-photosvideos/

"The travel lanes on B Street, a quiet residential neighborhood, have more in common with freeways than downtown." http://northbaydesignkit.blogs...ing-urbanism-in-local-paper.html

I could swear I posted this, but I don't find it in the archives. Shadow forwarded along pictures from building a diamond patterned penny tabletop.

[ related topics: Photography Currency Archival ]

Search Yahoo for "Stony Point Rd at Denman Rd, Petaluma CA", click on map image, get some place in Alaska? #WTFYahoo

[ related topics: Maps and Mapping Alaska ]

Bob Fletcher Dies at 101; Helped Japanese-Americans:

For the next three years he worked a total of 90 acres on three farms — he had also decided to run Mr. Tsukamoto’s farm. He worked 18-hour days and lived in the bunkhouse Mr. Tsukamoto had reserved for migrant workers. He paid the bills of all three families — the Tsukamotos, the Okamotos and the Nittas. He kept only half of the profits.

NY Times: Online Deals for Holiday Shopping: Buyer Beware:

So far this year, The Wirecutter and The Sweethome have researched 54,000 holiday deals. They’ve found that only a bit more than 300 of them — less than 1 percent — are worth your time. “When we find a deal that we think is good, it’s a needle in a haystack,” Ms. Cheng said. “We’re super-excited when that happens.”

Kind of anti-news, we know that this sort of "discounting" is just consumer manipulation, but amazing that they didn't find many loss leaders at all.

[ related topics: Current Events Consumerism and advertising ]

Okay, I had to giggle: Petaluma Police Dept. Lt. Dan *Fish* is writing the flood warning emails. (BTW, thank you for keeping us informed!)

[ related topics: Humor Writing Law Enforcement ]

The Economist: The psychology of discounting. Having trouble finding the inevitable press release, but it's about 's work on discounting.

This numerical blind spot remains even when the deal clearly favours the discounted product. In another experiment, this time on his undergraduates, Mr Rao offered two deals on loose coffee beans: 33% extra free or 33% off the price. The discount is by far the better proposition, but the supposedly clever students viewed them as equivalent.

Careful with that innumeracy.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Work, productivity and environment Education Handicaps & Disabilities Economics ]

RT Taupe Avenger ‏@TaupeAvenger

The winning bid for phase 2 of CAHSR in the Central Valley: $1,234,567,890 http://www.cahsrblog.com/2014/...second-hsr-construction-segment/

[ related topics: California Culture Machinery Fabrication Model Building ]

Sony hack reveals that the MPAA directly funded state Attorneys General to go after Google #justiceforall https://www.techdirt.com/artic...officials-to-attack-google.shtml

Thinking about Net Neutrality and and parking consideration in automobile traffic networks, and how they're similarly difficult to model.

[ related topics: Automobiles ]

Dear every web designer (Especially Google): Stop thinking you can do better things with my arrow keys than my browser. You can't.

U-T San Diego: How far will cop unions go to halt reform? Union law firm's 'candidate researchers' face felony charges for Costa Mesa incident. About trying to frame city council members who were speaking out for police department reform.

[ related topics: Current Events Law Enforcement ]

a little more trim work on the shower niches and then wait a week for the mortar to dry before grout

[ related topics: Photography Work, productivity and environment ]

WNYC: Can the NYPD spot the abusive cop?.

CCRB Records show that 40 percent of the 35,000 officers on the force today have never been the subject of a citizen complaint. Another 20 percent have only one. Yet about a thousand cops have 10 or more complaints. One has been able to rack up 51. The name of that officer is confidential, as are the names of any officer who is the target of a CCRB complaint.

And by protecting these psychopaths, the NYPD gives all police officers a bad name.

[ related topics: Law Enforcement ]

RT Jeff / Dax ‏@wolfwithdances:

Idea: make a plush wildcat fursuit and call it "ln -s" because soft lynx

[ related topics: Bay Area ]

For later perusal: The TouchBoard is a touch sensor with a MIDI mode.

I hate to link to Instructables for anything, but this uses that board and a conductive ink pen to make a cardboard MIDI guitar.

Wondering if, in conjunction with metal strings and split frets (or ceramic or non-conductive frets) this'd be an easy way to build a MIDI guitar.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music ]

RT Barry S ‏@weevilgenius:

@EMCP_ "I wrote a book about PHP" via @TomNomNom

[ related topics: Books Photography Archival ]

The ooc programming language compiles to C99, has a build system and code organization conventions built in, looks like it's got enough bindings to be useful:

However, a good programmer is a good programmer in any language. Discovering new ways of perceiving, designing, and manufacturing pieces of software is always a worthy pursuit.

Hence, for small to medium-sized, personal projects - a personal command-line utility, a graphical front-end for an application you like, a custom piece of zeromq-powered network infrastructure, or an indie game - ooc is a practical alternative to what’s out there.

[ related topics: Games broadband Invention and Design Software Engineering ]

Deep Neural Networks are Easily Fooled: High Confidence Predictions for Unrecognizable Images, Anh Nguyen, Jason Yosinski, Jeff Clune (PDF).

Amusing paper on generating images that get high confidence from automated image recognition systems, but that look like noise to humans.

[ related topics: Artificial Intelligence ]

Tile is in. Grout next weekend. Work on trim and vanity while mortar dries.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Picture of the tile in

[ related topics: Photography ]

Falsely accused of something, acquitted in court? You may still have to pay hundreds in court fees. http://www.wbez.org/story/inno...pay-court-fees-cook-county-97311

[ related topics: Food ]

I've got a bunch of half-read free Kindle books. @RickGualtieri 's "Bill the Vampire" isn't one of them. Now hooked on the series.

[ related topics: Books ]

Judge convicted of conspiring to plant methamphetamine on woman who had accused him of sexual misconduct:

Bryant Cochran, once the chief judge of Murray County’s Magistrate Court, also was found guilty of witness tampering, conspiring to distribute a controlled substance and a federal civil rights charge that accused him of sexually assaulting a court employee. Cochran, who faces almost certain prison time, is to be sentenced Feb. 20 by U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy in Rome.

[ related topics: Drugs Erotic Sexual Culture Health Law Current Events Work, productivity and environment Civil Liberties Gardening ]

Oh, look, a limited time coupon: A reminder that this retailer makes me haggle rather than giving me a fair price up-front.

That Verizon "end-to-end" encryption has a back door. So, not really "end-to-end", huh? http://www.businessweek.com/ar...ling-app-plays-nice-with-the-nsa

[ related topics: Invention and Design Cryptography ]

RT the grugq ‏@thegrugq:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a hacked network must be in want of a nation state to blame.

[ related topics: broadband ]

So, is the motivation behind the Cuba changes something to do with Guantanamo? Just what does Cuba have on the US there?

What cop shirts tell us about police culture.

It occurs to me that somewhere around a decade and a half, maybe even two decades ago, we software developers dropped "lusers" from our lexicon. We realized that the people who were looking for our services didn't see the world in the same way we did, but they had needs, and it was up to us to build software and methods that worked to fill those needs.

Seems to me that policing needs a similar cultural attitude shift. The adversarial attitude doesn't work, and must be fixed.

[ related topics: Dave Winer Software Engineering Sociology Work, productivity and environment Law Enforcement California Culture Clothing Gambling ]

Legacy Perl: Someone thought qq~string~ was more readable than "string". Also: $class vs $self for the "this" instance ref.

[ related topics: Perl Open Source hubris ]

This is awesome: The Euro bank notes were designed with images of fictional bridges, supposed to be archetypical of various historical European architectural styles:

They have been designed to prevent one single member state from having a bridge on their banknote opposed to other states not having any depicted in theirs. In other words, “member state neutral” banknotes.

A new development near Rotterdam in the Netherlands is building those bridges:

The illustrations on the banknotes show generic examples of architectural styles such as renaissance and baroque rather than real bridges from a particular member state, which could have aroused envy among other countries. "The European Bank didn't want to use real bridges so I thought it would be funny to claim the bridges and make them real," Stam told Dezeen.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Currency Birds ]

I want to go on the record now with the observation that "North Korean hacking" is the "Iraqi WMDs" of the twenty teens.

No charges for Richmond police officer who stole 4 lbs of marijuana.

[ related topics: Drugs Law Enforcement ]

Worth keeping in mind if you're going to the IAGSDC square dancing convention in St. Louis in May: http://fox2now.com/2014/12/17/...a-and-2-for-gonorrhea-in-nation/

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

People concerned about this git (really Windows & Mac) exploit will happily checkout, compile and run code without reading it first.

[ related topics: Microsoft Macintosh ]

Yeah, gas is getting too cheap. Richmond refinery exploded again... https://twitter.com/ethanbuckner/status/545784054709497856

Bicycle porn! The 2014 Cycle EXIF Top 10 (Via MeFi)

[ related topics: Photography Erotic Sexual Culture Nudity Pedal Power Bicycling ]

This Little USB Necklace Hacks Your Computer In No Time Flat, describing USBdriveby, a device that uses USB HID to take over a Mac when it's plugged in.

Time to epoxy up those USB ports, kids!

[ related topics: Children and growing up Macintosh ]

RT Scott Hanselman (@shanselman):

Are we going to be told next it was actually Saddam Hussein from a MacBook in the conservatory?

Violet blue has a great rundown of this week's exploits and hacks, finishing up with a good rundown of the Sony hack situation:

By Thursday, the amount of respected infosec professionals, researchers, hackers and professional security researchers calling the North Korea theory out as BS is truly a news story unto itself. Sony's poor reaction to everything about this attack isn't escaping seasoned infosec industry members. One called it "beyond the realm of the stupid."

[ related topics: Photography Current Events Work, productivity and environment Video Dictators hubris ]

Patrick Jaromin at LumberJocks: The Charity "LCA SG Jr" Electric Guitar, with the series detailing the build at his personal blog.

[ related topics: Music Weblogs Archival ]

Chain stores focusing on remote control vehicles is an indication that the primary business model is lost: Radio Shack, Big 5, etc.

Searching for "Brazilian Redwood" (aka Massaranduba) near Santa Rosa brings up a waxing salon in Redwood Plaza. Snicker.

[ related topics: Nature and environment ]

Multi color stucco chain store malls in the Central Valley are the Eastern Bloc grey of this century

[ related topics: California Culture ]

Today I learned that the products that Lowe's stocks are highly regional. Sub regions of California.

[ related topics: California Culture Economics ]

Man, Mercedes' quality control is really slipping. 8 or 9 hours of driving this weekend and not one on the road had working turn signals.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Automobiles ]

http://www.dissentmagazine.org...urbs-traffic-engineering-poverty

Good article on traffic/pedestrian patterns, although a cold part of me thinks of "darwinism in action" regarding some of the issues, their points regarding distances and usability of crosswalks are correct.

An interesting observation is how pedestrian and bicycle friendly beachside and resort communities are, often with wide landscaped walkways and paths and well marked crosswalks.

For the record: When conditions are right I prefer to cross in the middle of streets where I have a clear view of vehicles coming towards me. Intersections have too many variables, cars turning with short notice, changing directions and often distracted by everything else going on.

[ related topics: Community Pedal Power Bicycling ]

Via Shadow: How to bike home with our Christmas Tree. Not going to get there this week...

[ related topics: Bicycling ]

Took the old tub out November 22nd. Took a shower in the new tub this morning (still got vinyl over the tiles, and need one more grout pass)

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

NYPD Union President Patrick Lynch Is Completely Nuts: A History

RT Murtaza Hussain ‏@MazMHussain:

Noticing how unlike Zimmerman or Wilson no one is holding fundraisers for the guy who shot the police officers or seeking to lionize him.

[ related topics: Law Enforcement Cryptography ]

Wait, so Sony "may" air "The Interview" on their own subscription streaming service? This is one super elaborate promotion....

OH, paraphrased: "'Merry Christmas' emails are a great reminder to unsubscribe from a company's spam lists"

[ related topics: Spam Monty Python ]

From an Ask.Metafilter thread on the beauty of accenting flaws, a turned walnut bowl with stripes of lighter woods,

The sky above the office park was the color of a television tuned to a dead channel...

[ related topics: Photography Technology and Culture Television Gambling ]

Violet Blue: Charlatans: The new wave of privacy profiteers. Good rundown of the big privacy-selling shysters and scam artists of the past year.

[ related topics: Privacy Invention and Design History moron Art & Culture ]

Coca Cola disconnects voice mail at its headquarters. (Via /.).

This is particularly interesting to me because I work for a telecom provider that's running a lot of business fiber, and pricing based on voice seats....

[ related topics: Current Events Work, productivity and environment Sports ]

DA: Guns smuggled on Delta Airlines planes from Atlanta to New York 'egregious' security breach:

Henry was arrested in New York on December 10 after landing at JFK airport with 18 handguns in his bag -- seven of which were loaded, the affidavit says.

I'm not sure how flying handguns from Georgia to New York was a profitable venture, or why it was worth it to go through all of these shenanigans to bypass security rather than just driving, but...

Can we stop with the taking our shoes off bullshit?

[ related topics: Invention and Design Aviation Work, productivity and environment Shoes Guns New York ]

Leading Portland Oregon African American men talk about their experiences with the police.

[ related topics: Current Events Law Enforcement Race ]

RT Cranky Roman Guy ‏@querulus:

Last Saturnalia I gave you my heart. The very next day, you sacrificed it to Turan, the Etruscan goddess of fertility.

Silly, the zombie Jesus is Easter, not Christmas: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014...ativity-scene/?intcmp=latestnews

[ related topics: Religion Humor ]

Three cheers to Asus for making the K50I the easiest laptop keyboard replacement ever! A paperclip, less than 15 minutes, and done!

Indeed: http://www.sinfest.net/view.php?date=2014-12-24

Next time you're thinking about man-in-the-middle attacks and secure Internet use, ponder this: People are using BGP spoofing to redirect Internet traffic in order to steal bitcoins.

[ related topics: Net Culture ]

Interesting: If you miss something on Woot, wait a few days and it may show up on Amazon Gold Box for 35% more.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Books ]

Here's a Christmas story about what journalism used to be, about Alfred P. Reck, city editor of the Oakland Tribune, a boy dying of leukemia, and peaches: http://articles.latimes.com/1986-12-25/local/me-537_1_peaches

[ related topics: Bay Area Journalism and Media ]

So what's the current thinking, was it SPECTRE or COBRA that hacked Sony? Or the Decepticons?

Bus driver arrested for running over a pedestrian, transit union strikes in protest http://gothamist.com/2014/12/24/brooklyn_bus_protest.php

[ related topics: Civil Liberties Sports New York Public Transportation ]

Eric Meyer: Inadvertent Algorithmic Cruelty. On that Facebook "year in review" automatically generated video thing that's going around, and reminders of people passed.

[ related topics: Video ]

RT Daniel José Older @djolder:

And Im seeing medics didn't arrive till hours later for #AntonioMartin. That's administrative homicide on top of the actual shooting.

RT PAULA K. SCHMIDT ‏@PAULAKSCHMIDT:

@djolder your medical license please?

RT Daniel José Older ‏@djolder:

"@PAULAKSCHMIDT: @djolder your medical license please?"

Via.

[ related topics: Photography Archival ]

Hopefully I'll get a chance to play with some of my computing projects soon. Stored here for reference, a couple of G-code controllers:

• Grbl Controller 3.0.
• Grbl Web

"every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly..."

[ related topics: moron ]

I might go to see Idris Elba as Bond, I'd *definitely* go to see Forest Whittaker as in Ghost Dog as Bond.

[ related topics: Dogs ]

Quietly released on a holiday so you won't notice... http://mobile.bloomberg.com/ne...911ff5c38bf8258ace10d682ac22a4b3

[ related topics: Current Events ]

Quarter after ten and I don't have to hide any bodies. So far Christmas is a success.

[ related topics: Currency ]

Shop upgrade: replaced failed fluorescent fixture with a spare LED over the router table

[ related topics: Photography Furniture Woodworking ]

Well that's a non-trivial glue up...

[ related topics: Photography ]

If anyone's missing Christmas packages, the Petaluma PD has caught a package thief and has extra items: https://local.nixle.com/alert/5325050/?sub_id=373138

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Charlie Pierce on that latest report of NSA overreach: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/p...pr_TWITTER&spr_id=1456_125500172

[ related topics: Politics ]

There'll be a little wet sanding to get off some of the epoxy grout that I missed.

[ related topics: Photography ]

This morning's productivity was spurred by Podcastle #341 "Balfour and Meriwether in the Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs": An interesting bit of steampunk meets Lovecraft that, in the end, went towards some political statements that worked really well. If you're looking for some fiction listening. http://podcastle.org/2014/12/1...incident-of-the-harrowmoor-dogs/

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics moron Work, productivity and environment Dogs ]

I think that'll kinda work as a toilet paper holder...

[ related topics: Photography Work, productivity and environment ]

Shadow forwarded along this image of a "5 things I like almost as much fun as riding my bike" mug. Looks like the originator is Shot Dead In The Head: Five Things I like - Bike mug, and T-shirt.

[ related topics: Clothing Bicycling ]

Still needs a few coats of poly, and the wall behind needs some love, but in place for now

[ related topics: Photography ]

http://io9.com/how-to-start-your-own-micronation-1675358897

We'd joked many times about this.. Seems other people are much more serious!

Wow, this is how you run a police department: A Christmas Message for the Metro Nasvhille Police Department from Chief Steve Anderson.

Also copied at Tennessean: Nashville Chief of Police shares message, responds to questions.

[ related topics: Current Events Journalism and Media Law Enforcement ]

Sometimes it takes a trip to Fresno to discover things about Sonoma County:

[ related topics: Photography California Culture Travel ]

[ related topics: Photography ]

Wal*Mart offers a big old blow off to pedestrians

[ related topics: Photography ]

Someone in Sanger is growing some righteous resinous bud, but it's only smellable by pedestrians, so it'll never be discovered.

[ related topics: Beer ]

World's biggest nerd?

[ related topics: Photography ]

Sometimes the best Christmas gifts are put together from parts found around the house

[ related topics: Photography Real Estate ]

Recharging at Ellis Creek

[ related topics: Photography Nature and environment ]

Accidental dupe, see http://www.flutterby.com/archives/comments/20823.html

One ugly duckling

[ related topics: Photography ]

Quake on an oscilloscope, using the sound card for output

[ related topics: Games Earthquake ]

Radley Balko's horrifying civil liberties predictions for 2015 all already happened on 2014.

[ related topics: Movies Current Events ]

Our HP has given up the ghost. Are there any printers out there that don't suck? Weighing cost per page vs expected hardware lifespan...

Via Shadow: Anthony's crash TT Tuesday. Seriously holy crap bike crash, and reason to take the lane...

[ related topics: Movies Bicycling ]

Practicing etching glass for the shower doors. Need a bigger sandblasting gun. And compressor.

[ related topics: Photography Guns ]

Thanks for the printer recommendations everyone! "Brother laser" seemed to come up a lot.

RT Mychal Denzel Smith (@mychalsmith):

No one tell NYPD this is exactly what activists have wanted: http://nypost.com/2014/12/29/a...following-execution-of-two-cops/

RT Mychal Denzel Smith (@mychalsmith):

with such a significant drop, they do realize they’re saying MOST ARRESTS ARE COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY. they get that, right?

[ related topics: Law Enforcement ]

So is "drive a Tesla off a Highway 1 cliff" the update to the "CEO with a recent IPO and a Ferrari" narrative?