Flutterby™! From 2015-09-01 to 2015-09-30

The Whore Next Door: Intimacy and the Law. On various different personal services, and their legality.

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

How a bug in Visual Studio 2015 exposed my source code on GitHub and cost me $6,500 in a few hours.

Bug in Visual Studio's git integration made github repos that were supposed to be private public, which expose Amazon credentials, which Bitcoin miners use to spin up a bunch of EC2 instances...

[ related topics: Books Open Source ]

Nail biting suspense, gorgeous scenery, human drama, and obsessive climbers relentlessly pursuing a goal: http://www.merufilm.com/

Bettina Arndt: The growing male sex drought:

Surveys from across the world are now reporting dropping sexual frequencies, more celibate marriages and an increasing gap between male and female sexual desire with even young women reporting loss of sexual interest.

Arndt links to a PDF of an article that she wrote for The Weekend Australian (that, alas, doesn't seem to be available in a more friendly form) which quotes Osmo Kontula:

"Why was there such a decline in intercourse frequency in the 2000s? There’s been a 10 to 15 per cent drop in people of all ages who say they’ve had sex in the last week. People are now having less sex than in the early 1970s and the greatest decline has been for young people, those aged 25 to 40."

Kontula looks like he's got some fascinating papers. I'm interested in how this might tie into some of the demographic shifts happening in Japan (that will probably make their way over to the U.S. and Europe of those haven't started happening already)...

[ related topics: Quotes Erotic Sexual Culture Sociology Current Events Marketing ]

Heaven forbid they should block automobile traffic

[ related topics: Photography Automobiles ]

Lunch run 4.27 miles, just under 9min/mi. Including a tricky traverse of the wet ditch south of Amy's, and some crossing traffic issues.

We've been having some performance issues with the home network, and I've been thinking about one of the more expensive Microtik routers, because it'll give us some diagnostics, do away with a hub on the home network.

We're currently using a Belkin for the NAT portion of the home network routing. This should change.

Popular Belkin Wi-Fi routers plagued by unpatched security flaws.

[ related topics: broadband Theater & Plays ]

Bought a brand-new phone? It could still have malware.

Ray Gorman, Lenovo's executive director of external communications, wrote in an email that the device G Data analyzed came from a third-party marketplace. The malware was installed by middlemen, he wrote.

"This is the only such occurrence we have been made aware of," Gorman wrote. "We always recommend customers transact with authorized distribution channels and only accept merchandise that comes in an official box with original factory seals."

Smartphone malware planted in popular apps pre-sale.

Via /.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Dan & Charlene's July 2003 San Juan Trip ]

Omni Hoverboards. YouTube video of a flight.

As the n-copter set of technologies progresses to human flight, I didn't think that this'd be the first viable form-factor, but it kinda looks like it is.

[ related topics: Movies Aviation Video ]

This is fascinating: Nature: AGM2015: Antineutrino Global Map 2015. Go look at the pretty pictures in section 1.

[ related topics: Photography Nature and environment Maps and Mapping ]

ACLU: Since When Are Consensual Sexual Relationships a Threat to National Security? On the Rentboy.com raids, and the Department of Homeland Security's participation in them.

Relatedly, yesterday I discovered that there are people who un-ironically celebrate J. Edgar Hoover's notion that "justice is incidental to law and order." Shudder

More: Truth Out: Beyond Rentboy: Will the LGBT Movement Really Fight for Sex Worker Rights?

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Weblogs Law Enforcement ]

More proof we don't control our web pages. Examples of ISP and network providing MitM-ing the web.

[ related topics: broadband ]

The C Programming Language Brian W Kernighan & Dennis M Ritchie & HP Lovecraft

People in the nearby towns had talked about C for nearly a century, and nothing new could be wilder or more hideous than what they had whispered and hinted years before. Many things had taught them secrecy, and there was now no need to exert pressure on them.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Software Engineering ]

DA Ken Thompson: Charges for Punching Driver, No Charges for Killing Child:

East 22nd Street north of Ditmas Avenue, where the crash occurred, is a narrow, two-way cul-de-sac lined with apartments. The News said Auguste “lived on the block and was known for having a lead foot.” A witness said he “tried to press the brake, but went 15 to 20 feet before he stopped,” an indication that Jadann might be alive today if Auguste had been driving slower.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Current Events Maps and Mapping New York Real Estate ]

Pupusas at noon in Santa Rosa, NW corner of Marlow & W. College. "Pupusas at noon" sounds like an old western, don't it?

[ related topics: Education ]

Calculating RSA private keys from its public counterpart. A nice little walk-through of cracking a short public key.

[ related topics: Weblogs Cryptography ]

RT mcc ‏@mcclure111

Please note: Per ISO ISO 8601 if it is not formatted like 1994-11-05T08:15:30-05:00 it is not a date, it is just "hanging out"

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

New York Times: Documents reveal the NSA campaign against encryption. From the documents:

The SIGINT Enabling Project actively engages the US and foreign IT industries to covertly influence and/or overtly leverage their commercial products' designs. These design changes make the systems in question exploitable through SIGINT collection (e.g., Endpoint, MidPiont, etc.) with foreknowledge of the modification. To the consumer and other adversaries, however, the systems' security remains intact.

Emphasis mine, so that I could call out: Do they believe the bullshit they write? I wonder how many of the exploits that we're discovering have been inserted by the NSA, discovered by the scammers and crackers, and are now our problem?

Among the goals stated for the project for FY2013:

Reach full operating capability for SIGINT access to a major Internet Peer-to-Peer voice and text communications system.

ie: probably Skype. And:

Complete enabling for ■■■■■■■■ encryption chips used in Virtual Private Network and Web encryption devices.

Careful with your hardware VPN devices, kids.

[ related topics: Children and growing up broadband Invention and Design Consumerism and advertising Net Culture Graphic Design Cryptography New York ]

RT PHP CEO ‏@PHP_CEO

LISTEN PAL IT'S ONLY IMPOSTER SYNDROME IF YOU'RE ACTUALLY SMART

OTHERWISE IT'S CALLED A REALITY CHECK

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

So my musician friends email me "GIG ALERT"s, and CHP emails me "SIG ALERT"s, and sometimes my inbox is very confusing.

Yep, it's happening again: "child porn" charges are being used against the people they're supposed to protect. 2 North Carolina teens hit with child porn charges after consensual sexting:

What’s strange is that of the five charges he faces, four of them are for taking and possessing nude photos of himself on his own phone—the final charge is for possessing one nude photo his girlfriend took for him. There is no evidence of coercion or further distribution of the images anywhere beyond the two teenagers’ phones.

As the article also points out, it is legal in North Carolina for both of them to have sex, just not possess naked pictures of each other.

[ related topics: Photography Erotic Sexual Culture Nudity Law ]

Guess the perps were white; yesterday's CA North Coast fiber breach is attributed to "vandals", not "terrorists" http://www.pressdemocrat.com/h...-blamed-for-massive-phone?page=0

[ related topics: Race ]

Complex system we need on Tuesday, and my morning has been a series of interruptions to help people solve externally caused problems.

So, I know it's for rolling in, but this is some pretty specialized marketing

[ related topics: Photography Consumerism and advertising Marketing ]

I'd be even more for this proposal if we could start abandoning non-productive infrastructure as well! http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/...ace-a-new-65-highway-6483821.php

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Invention and Design Work, productivity and environment California Culture ]

The strawberries are coming for us. While we sleep...

[ related topics: Photography ]

The "low water"landscaping is all brown, the grass that the poisons and sheet mulching barely slowed are green

[ related topics: Photography ]

Home ownership, man.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Roughing out the bathroom vanity front

[ related topics: Photography ]

Need to cut the handle deeper, and still some burn marks to work out

[ related topics: Photography Work, productivity and environment ]

Just finished "The Shepherd's Crown". It is not a good place to start Pratchett, but as we've no choice, it is a fitting place to end.

[ related topics: Terry Pratchett ]

To complaints about phones: Before their neighborhoods were bombed to rubble, these refugees were middle class. We should welcome them.

So much sanding. So much more to go. But this feels sooooo good.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Discussion at a party this afternoon about the Monty Hall problem. Really, though, I want to know about the Benny Hill problem.

[ related topics: Monty Python Community ]

So the Monty Hall problem was largely because people weren't sober enough to articulate the "Girls Named Florida" problem. Which is obvious

[ related topics: Monty Python ]

Writing choreo for a square dance tomorrow. Brain all explodey. Think the dancers will get a better experience if I sight call most of it.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Writing ]

RT Melissa[glory emoji] ‏@0xabad1dea

HOLY GLITTER GLUE, A HARD DRIVE WITH UNDOCUMENTED WIFI TELNET ACCESS http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/903500 ht @kennwhite

Seagate wireless hard drives need a firmware update, because....

A remote unauthenticated attacker may access arbitrary files on the harddrive, or gain root access to the device.

[ related topics: Wireless virus ]

Some notes on the idiocy of traffic studies, as Petaluma's Ranier project heats up again... http://urbankchoze.blogspot.co...e-idiocy-of-traffic-studies.html

RT I Am Devloper @iamdevloper:

“To find your superhero name, give me your first pet’s name, mother’s maiden name and the last 4 digits of your credit card”

Wait a sec…

So is Unicode Turing complete yet?

Listened to Planet Money #647. So Netflix is a media company that has essentially outsourced all its tech. Interesting.

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy Journalism and Media Currency ]

Petaluma drought watch: Standing water on 2nd St.

[ related topics: Photography Movies ]

Some day I will feel more prepared and like I haven't forgotten critical things. In SF to call a square dance for Foggy City Dancers.

[ related topics: Bay Area ]

And calling tonight felt like it went pretty well. A mix of read & sight-called. I do want to help my floor move faster...

Sonic "might be" the best ISP in the U.S.? Of course it is. But the competition is mostly pretty awful... http://www.slate.com/blogs/fut...service_provider_in_the_u_s.html

[ related topics: Net Culture ]

Your bird innuendo of the day: Boobies Behaving Badly:

First, you have to understand that boobies are dicks. ...

[ related topics: Birds ]

Petaluma's Lagunitas Brewing to partner with Heineken in 50-50 deal.

The Lagunitas Tumblr: The Future will not be like the Past

[ related topics: History ]

Some days... Got a mile and a half into today's lunch-time run before I said "screw this". It's *hot* out there.

John McAfee for president? Well, he's about as batshit insane as many of the Republican candidates.

• http://www.wired.com/2015/09/john-mcafee-want-run-president/
• http://thehill.com/policy/tech...s-paperwork-to-run-for-president

[ related topics: virus Software Engineering ]

When the headline for the Burning Man wrap-up article talks about Katy Perry falling off a Segway... #eyeroll http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/...y-falls-off-a-Segway-6489190.php

[ related topics: Burning Man Nature and environment Segway/Ginger/IT ]

Good cops: Clatskanie Oregon officers turn in police chief, allege racism.

"Allowing Chief Hoover to retire while paying him a bonus sends exactly the wrong message. Rather than holding Chief Hoover accountable for his racism, they rewarded him," David Rogers, the chapter's executive director, said in a written statement. "By condoning Chief Hoover's actions and intolerance, the city council has delivered a disturbing message about the values of Clatskanie, at the same time discouraging people who think about stepping up and doing the right thing by reporting such unacceptable actions."

[ related topics: Weblogs Law Enforcement Race ]

Marcus Bales: The Modern Fundamentalist's Song (to the tune of "I am the very model of a modern Major General")

A pug playing drums to Metallica Enter Sandman (YouTube), archived here because I know there's someone on Facebook that this is appropriate to, but I don't find them right now and...

(and as a reminder to me: It's not Ruby)

[ related topics: Music Movies ]

100°F, overwhelming stench of neighboring fertilized fields, I'll excuse my short loop 2.3 miles at 10min/mi with that.

RT Parker Higgins ‏@xor:

Left: Samsung SmartTV privacy policy, warning users not to discuss personal info in front of their TV

Right: 1984

[ related topics: Photography Privacy Technology and Culture Television Archival ]

[ related topics: Photography ]

Hot air balloon landing, on the way to work

[ related topics: Photography Aviation Work, productivity and environment ]

Catherine the Great’s dirty, dirty furniture collection looks like a republication of Catherine the Great’s erotic cabinet.

[ related topics: Erotic Home Improvement ]

First Library to Support Anonymous Internet Browsing Effort Stops After DHS Email.

Used in repressive regimes by dissidents and journalists, Tor is considered a crucial tool for freedom of expression and counts the State Department among its top donors. But Tor has been a thorn in the side of law enforcement; National Security Agency documents made public by Snowden have revealed the agency’s frustration that it could only identify a “very small fraction” of Tor users.

[ related topics: Language Books Privacy Journalism and Media Law Enforcement Civil Liberties Net Culture Government ]

RT David Graeber ‏@davidgraeber

woman wins suit arguing "pattern of sexual assault" by NYPD vs OWS activists http://gothamist.com/2015/09/08/ows_protester_settlement.php http://www.nakedcapitalism.com...against-peaceful-protestors.html

This is about OWS Protester Who Had Her Breast Grabbed By NYPD Sergeant Gets $95K Settlement and David Graeber: New Police Strategy in New York – Sexual Assault Against Peaceful Protestors.

David then goes on:

if proof of systematic gov't sexual assault on peaceful protestors does NOT become a nat'l scandal, what does that tell us about America?

#:

ok 1 more time: US GOV'T INTENTIONALLY EMPLOYED TACTICS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT VS CITIZENS ENGAGED IN CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED ACTIVITY

#:

I mean think about that for a moment: someone CAME UP WITH that plan. Some sitting in an office said "I know! Let's try sexual assault!"

#:

whoever came up with that idea is still almost certainly being paid a six-figure salary by taxpayers to come up with ways to attack them

#:

just think about what kind of culture'd produce gov't officials brainstorming ways to sexually traumatise women engaged in democ. expression

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Erotic Sexual Culture Invention and Design History Sociology Work, productivity and environment Law Enforcement California Culture New York ]

Ramblings of a Self-Proclaimed MILF: To Be Filed Under "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME": That time I stood up for what I believed in, even though it meant going outside my comfort zone.

In case you can't read it, here's what it says:

blah blah blah..."Picture Day"...blah blah "role model and leader"...blah blah blah..."Plan ahead what to wear"...blah blah blah "Girls who wear a skirt or a dress will earn 25 points" ...blah blah blah "Girls and boys who wear nice pants and a collar shirt will earn 15 points"...blah blah blah...

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Law Clothing ]

RT Violet Blue ® ‏@violetblue:

Women: Stop harassing me with that "smile" shit.

Everyone: Ya, it's creepy.

Apple: [literally *makes* a woman smile] http://www.theverge.com/2015/9...apple-adobe-ipad-pro-woman-smile

Yep. Adobe's demo at Apple's iPad Pro roll-out...

[ related topics: Apple Computer ]

Hey, the peeping-tom liar James Clapper who perjured himself in front of Congress kind of backpedals: Director of national intelligence: Snowden forced “needed transparency”

[ related topics: Politics ]

NOAA Climate.gov: September 2015 El Niño Update and Q&A.

[ related topics: Current Events Global Warming ]

That thing where the new person doesn't know the lore and follows the remediation process suggested by the outdated error message...

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

Other view

[ related topics: Photography ]

RT Esti ‏@slightlyfunny77:

I haven't eaten an apple in days. The doctors are closing in. My barricade won't last much longer. They're coming. Tell my family I love th-

[ related topics: Apple Computer Sociology ]

Fascinating: Pulling Out Is as Effective as Using Condoms:

"Withdrawal...is about as effective as condoms at preventing pregnancy" begins a 2014 study published by Contraception, an international journal on reproduction. When practiced perfectly—in other words, when the male partner pulls out before ejaculation during every incidence of vaginal intercourse— only 4 percent of couples who use the pullout method will get pregnant within a year. Imperfect, or typical, use bumps that to 18 percent. (Male condoms failure rates are 2 percent for perfect use and 17 percent for typical.) This is a minor discrepancy, yet pulling out has a reputation for being dangerously cavalier, while condoms are the gold standard of sexual responsibility. Several of the medical professionals I reached out to for this piece were sympathetic to withdrawal use but afraid to say so publicly.

Given rates like this, I think there's probably some digging in for more information on disease transmission that could be done...

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Shamrock Materials from Steamer Landing Park

[ related topics: Photography Aviation ]

Elsevier distributing something that looks like a USB key, but is actually a HID device that does a "Windows-R" key combination, and then enters a URL.

Another reminder to be super careful about what USB devices you plug in.

[ related topics: Microsoft ]

Once again: There is no ‘war on cops.’ And those who claim otherwise are playing a dangerous game.

The Myth of the 'War on Cops'

With the "war on cops" narrative on the rise again, you might be wondering: When it comes to lethal violence against police officers, how does 2015 stack up against other years? Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute took a look at the annual number of cops who died of non-accidental gunshots, as measured by the Officer Down Memorial Page. This year isn't over yet, obviously, but if the trend thus far continues, 2015's rate will be higher than 2013's. It will also be lower than every other year since 1870:

Even in absolute numbers(!)

[ related topics: Games Weblogs Movies History Current Events Law Enforcement ]

RT Jane Coaston ‏@cjane87:

File under "this is why you have at least one gay person on staff to look at things like this and say noooooooo."

Apparently it's a TV show. Not just http://www.grindr.com/

[ related topics: Photography Sexual Culture Technology and Culture Television Archival ]

RT Danny Charnley ‏@DanKCharnley:

please don't open up a new can of whoop ass when there is already an opened one in the refrigerator

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

Early run to beat the heat... kinda. 3.10 miles, 9:10 min/mi.

Coworker writes that he's "trying to pass a date to a sub", and I have to wrap my head around that being a work programming topic...

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

Computer Science Courses that Don't Exist, But Should

Okay, the Quiznos Burning Man commercial is a thing of beauty: https://youtu.be/CBVBHRD5lNU

[ related topics: Burning Man ]

URGENT: get the hell off Apache OpenOffice, it’s insecure and not worked on any more. LibreOffice is better in literally every way. HWP files can be used for an exploit, and you can rename an HWP file to .doc and the recipient will be none the wiser:

they’ve known about this since april 2015 and haven’t fixed it. they have distributed over 50 million known-vulnerable copies of AOO since 27 april.

the fix is, literally, remove one file from the installer. they haven’t got it together to do this in five months.

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source ]

Holy crap: Firefox is now doing "suggested links" on its blank page? This wouldn't be so bad if they were relevant to me. Sigh.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

My Twitter feed is a mix of reports from XOXO Fest and Catalyst Con, and it's exhilarating and confusing.

Guardian profile of Myles Jackman, Britain's leading obscenity lawyer

He paused in order to welcome the beef and then he was back to the staging of his argument: “Think about the 1980s – the VCR comes into the home and what happens? The state loses control.” His scorn flattened into sarcasm. “This is the fear of ‘the great unwashed’. What will we do if they get pornography? The good little worker should not be distracted or allowed such self-indulgence. But the intelligentsia or the elite or the establishment or the art crowd or the rugby clubs or whatever you want to call them, they are perfectly prepared to engage hypocritically in activities that they would never countenance publicly.”

the MeFi thread

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Erotic Sexual Culture Food Law Art & Culture ]

Just took the addresses on the Valley Fire Incident http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/inc...ts_details_info?incident_id=1226 page and put them into Google Maps http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/inc...ts_details_info?incident_id=1226

[ related topics: Pyrotechnics Maps and Mapping ]

Heard about the artist renaissance in Vallejo, found the location of this festival apropos

[ related topics: Photography Art & Culture ]

Am any hint of unusual air traffic and I'm outside nervously looking for smoke...

That moment when you realize "rugged mature" could be self-description. Also: "cheesy"

[ related topics: Photography ]

“Picture yourself as a stereotypical male”:

As it turns out, there is zero statistically significant gender difference in mental rotation ability after test-takers are asked to imagine themselves as stereotypical men for a few minutes. None. An entire standard deviation of female underperformance is negated on this condition, just as a man’s performance is slightly hindered if he instead imagines himself as a woman. (well then.)

NY Times: How Elementary School Teachers’ Biases Can Discourage Girls From Math and Science. In Israel:

In math, the girls outscored the boys in the exam graded anonymously, but the boys outscored the girls when graded by teachers who knew their names.

But studies in the U.S. suggest similar effects.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Interactive Drama Theater & Plays Mathematics ]

Alice Dreger: Opioids: an "n of 1" reflection:

... if you take evidence seriously, you come to be highly suspect of your own subjective experiences as “true.” That is, you understand that while you may subjectively experience things one way, looking at well-collected, more objective scientific data can suggest that you’re not actually experiencing what you might at first think.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Pop Culture ]

We Interviewed the Historian Who Just Found the Oldest Use of the Word 'Fuck':

Paul Booth, an honorary senior research fellow in history at Keele University, was recently digging around in the Chester county court plea rolls from December 8, 1310—and really, who hasn't dug around in there? That was when he came upon three write-ups from the court clerk, telling the sad story of a guy with the unenviable name of Roger Fuckebythenavele, or seemingly: "Roger the Navel-Fucker."

[ related topics: Education iPhone ]

Nobilis Reed pointed out an easy way to make Facebook better:\

[ related topics: Photography Archival ]

DEA Impersonating Medical Board Investigators To Gain Access To Personal Health Records.

Texas: Med Board lets DEA sneak peeks at patient records:

In that 5th Circuit case that’s about to set an important precedent, DEA agents spent hours examining private medical records after tricking a nurse into believing they were with the Medical Board.

The trick was easy. Three DEA agents showed up at a Dallas doctor’s office accompanied by a medical board investigator who told the nurse “they were with the Texas State Medical Board,” according to a deposition in the case. “The other three persons along with her kept silent.”

[ related topics: Health Law ]

DevOops.

Yay! 9th Circuit Court says Fair Use review must be taken into consideration in DMCA takedown requests.

If they have not, they can be held liable for damages under the DMCA's Section 512(f) — a provision that bars improper use of the takedown procedure but has barely been enforced by the courts.

We need more 512(f) enforcement.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

It's humid, which is good from a fire standpoint. Lunch-time run was 3.15 miles at 9:07 min/mi.

[ related topics: Pyrotechnics ]

Mediterranean Diet and Invasive Breast Cancer Risk Among Women at High Cardiovascular Risk in the PREDIMED TrialA Randomized Clinical Trial.

That's 272 calories per day from olive oil, or 3+ tablespoons per meal...

[ related topics: Photography Food Archival ]

It's over. Russia just officially won the internets: RT Russian Embassy, UK Verified account ‏@RussianEmbassy:

Just imagine UK media headlines if Russian President called a leading opposition party threat to national security?

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Interactive Drama Photography Sociology Journalism and Media Economics Archival ]

Prisoners Who Fight Wildfires in California: An Insider’s Look https://www.themarshallproject...-in-california-an-insider-s-look

[ related topics: California Culture ]

I shouldn't have to pass this along, y'all are smarter than this, but I still see 'em: http://smashinglife.co.uk/3-bu...fugees-you-need-to-stop-sharing/

We have the instructions, and the button, and the error message... Ya know, why don't we just put the whole page in red bolded letters?

Negative Feedback – Attack on a YouTube Channel. In which attackers use an ISP's monoculture of CPE router to do HTTP forwarding to vote down videos.

[ related topics: Weblogs Woodworking ]

Dr Jen Gunter dismantle's the Baltimore Sun's op-ed on the HPV vaccine.

[ related topics: Heinlein Fashion Java ]

Words to strike terror into any user: "... a beautifully redesigned graphic interface to make it more intuitive..."

Look, Dreamforce attendees, it's very nice that the buildings are all tall, but some of us use the sidewalk for transportation.

[ related topics: Architecture ]

"C++ is complicated, but PowerPoint is more complicated" -- Mike Spertus

Special to everyone trying to make a new "Virtual Reality" resurgence: The whole VR thing went out in the '90s....

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

So apparently the difference between Mormon missionaries and Dreamforce attendees is that the Mormons have better fitting suits.

Poor kid thought that learning and intellectual curiosity would be rewarded by the education system. Rookie mistake http://www.dallasnews.com/news...ing-homemade-clock-to-school.ece

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

The Atlantic: Why Firefighters Get More Cancer:

To further reduce risk, firefighters should have a second set of turnout gear to wear in case there’s a fire while the first set is being cleaned. But that would cost at least an additional $1,500 per firefighter—a sum many pinched municipalities don’t have.

Given what firefighters are getting paid in pensions, and what insurance costs are, this is likely a problem of externalities and subsidies for the wrong things. Grrr.

[ related topics: Health Law Pyrotechnics ]

Irving TX 9th grader arrested after taking a homemade clock to school.

“It could reasonably be mistaken as a device if left in a bathroom or under a car. The concern was, what was this thing built for? Do we take him into custody?”

So can a fucking backpack. I hope this kid can sue the school system and the police department into oblivion, and I then hope that the USDOJ comes in and lays some serious something for the blatant admission to racist policing policies.

Live video: Irving police, school officials discuss Ahmed Mohamed's arrest

Anil Dash is trying to Help Ahmed Make

People are pointing out that this is shades of Kiera Wilmot.

Definitive proof that 9th grader Ahmed Mohamed is smarter than the police officers who arrested him.

How to make your own homemade clock that isn't a bomb.

Andy Ihnatko: I’m Ahmed. Except I’m Not Brown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mW4w0Y1OXE&feature=youtu.be

[ related topics: Children and growing up Interactive Drama Theater & Plays Current Events Law Enforcement Automobiles Community Video ]

Today's "are you fucking kidding me?" sexism of the moment: Real Estate ad upsets working moms

And Our Own Two Wheels, in which an exec at Surly Bikes talks a bit about sexism in the bicycling scene.

[ related topics: Weblogs Current Events Work, productivity and environment Sports Pedal Power Bicycling Real Estate ]

11-Year-Old Kid Shames "Whiny Entitled" Adults Who Hate Safer Silver Lake Streets transcribes eleven-year-old Matlock Grossman's speech to the city council:

Clearly there are motorists out there who are not mature enough to share the road without having the rules painted on the road to show who goes where. The road diet, by design, is meant to slow down cars because – motorists are the problem.

Even if there are zero bicyclists taking advantage of the bike lanes, it doesn't matter. The road diet effectively reduces collisions and the statistics prove this.

Stop bullying and victim-blaming the pedestrians and bicyclists as being the problem.

If motorists acted towards women, or another group of people, the way you act towards cyclists, people would be horrified by your hateful words and violent actions.

I don't understand why driving a car makes you think you're more important than someone else. You're not.

It's whiny entitled behavior you wouldn't tolerate from a kid, why should I tolerate it from adults?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Mathematics Automobiles Graphic Design Bicycling Archival ]

Dear Google. If you text me your 2FA code with a "G-" prefix, your web login should accept that prefix.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

RT Liam ‏@liamosaur:

Favourite thing in my .bashrc remains:

alias fuck='sudo $(history -p \!\!)'

[ related topics: Photography Archival ]

A few years ago fought hard by the NRDC, now a marketing point on high end food

[ related topics: Photography Food Consumerism and advertising Marketing ]

okay, why is "dzil test" creating lower-cased versions of my library directories? #somuchdistzillahate

[ related topics: Language Books ]

So we were supposed to be using "service ..." to abstract away "/etc/init.d...", but now it's "systemctl..."? This dystopian future sucks.

Having Lost The Debate On Backdooring Encryption, Intelligence Community Plans To Wait Until Next Terrorist Attack.

[ related topics: Community Cryptography ]

NOVA: The Autism-Vaccine Myth seems like a balanced look. I had no idea that the MMR vaccination rate dropped as low as 80% in 2003 in Great Britain following Wakefield's lies.

I knew that several studies looked at differences in autism diagnoses in the U.S. in the context of our anti-vaccine movement (and found that unvaccinated children were more likely to develop autism, although not in a statistically significant way), but going from 91-92% to 80% gave them a real sample to look at.

Later addition: Vox: Anti-vaxxers like Trump aren't just wrong: they promote bigotry toward people with autism

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

Healthcare: biz won't take payment at their standard hourly rate so that you can interview them to see if you want to be a regular customer

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Okay, Dist::Zilla geeks: That thing where all your tests run with prove, but dzil reports them out of order and with an error?

VW accused of using software in 482,000 diesels to skirt U.S. clean-air rules.

The EPA press release.

The California ARB compliance letter.

Yes, I realize that only lawyers get rich in these things, but sign me up for the f'in class action lawsuit.

Via MeFi.

[ related topics: Software Engineering California Culture ]

If C++ is a gun aimed at your toes, but at least you're bringing a gun to a knife fight, Perl is bringing a Bat'leth to a gun fight.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Perl Open Source Guns hubris ]

Visualizing map distortion

[ related topics: Maps and Mapping ]

Chinese iOS devs download Xcode from 3rd-party, spyware was added in compile time for many popular Chinese iOS apps

Ken Thompson talked a bit about this once...

RT mhoye ‏@mhoye

Reminder: the ad debate is a proxy war for people's right to own and control a general purpose computer.

[ related topics: History ]

People who think the Ahmed Mohamed clock thing is about race or religion: us tinkerers know that that's only half of it.

[ related topics: Religion moron ]

Despite our best efforts, we got one volunteer tomato...

[ related topics: Photography Food ]

Made it until today without putting in the window air conditioner. It's in and running now. Extra sympathy to the refugees from the fires.

[ related topics: Sports ]

The headline is perhaps a little inflammatory: The EPA Opposes Rules That Could’ve Exposed VW’s Cheating, but it's not wrong. If we mandated open source ECU code, there's a chance we could have found this stuff. Instead we DMCA hide it, making it easier for miscreants and ne'er do wells to conceal misdeeds.

[ related topics: Free Software Interactive Drama ]

Why HTTPS and the whole Certificate Authority system is rotten to the core: Symantec caught issuing rogue Google.com certificates.

Symantec has thrown some employees under the bus.

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

Minimum Viable iOS Engineer. Some thoughts on the proliferation of APIs, especially in the age of programming as tying obscure blocks of third party functionality together.

[ related topics: Software Engineering ]

The answer to Friday's tribulations is that, yes, Dist::Zilla was deliberately broken. Upstream patches are in process.

[ related topics: Heinlein ]

musl libc, a lightweight libc for embedded systems. Also usefl: a comparison of various small C libraries.

[ related topics: Robotics Embedded Devices ]

The myth about poor people eating more fast food appears to be false:

As shown in the chart above, children born to families living just above the poverty line and below get roughly 11.5 percent of their calories from fast food. For everyone else, the portion is closer to 13 percent.

This is from the CDC National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

[ related topics: Children and growing up Health Food Current Events ]

Well crap: El Niño unlikely to help us Northern Californians: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/p...nal_outlooks/color/churchill.php

[ related topics: Global Warming ]

Some Valley Fire volunteers critical of Red Cross.

With the recent fires up in Lake County I have seen a whole bunch of grumblings like this, KTVU collects some of 'em in one article. A whole lot of local organizations saying "we need X, Y, and Z", the Red Cross representative saying "Stop giving goods, we just need cash", the local organizations saying "We need X, Y, and Z in these locations, and we need the Red Cross to STFU and go home because they're getting in the way."

And then detailed instructions on how to avoid the Red Cross gatekeepers at various shelters which had pools and outdoor areas to get towels, swimsuits and sunscreen to kids. And more people looking for loads of hay and grains for large animals, and such.

Probably related: How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti ­and Built Six Homes, In Search Of The Red Cross' $500 Million In Haiti Relief.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Bay Area Current Events Pyrotechnics ]

Vanity Fair: Stonewall Is Terribly Offensive, and Offensively Terrible. A good takedown of Roland Emmerich's abomination of a film.

[ related topics: Political Correctness ]

Keller Rohrback L.L.P's page that looks like it's soliciting people to participate in a lawsuit against Volkswagen for lying about diesel emissions.

[ related topics: Seattle ]

Who Said It: Presidential Hopeful Donald Trump or ‘Idiocracy’ President Camacho?

Ad tech always wins: Ad blocker users are the new hot ad-targeting segment:

The idea of pushing ads at people who have made a deliberate choice not to see them might seem bizarre. But as a demo that’s young, male-skewing and tech-focused, they’re an attractive audience for certain advertisers. ...

[ related topics: Invention and Design Sociology Consumerism and advertising ]

Just because every time I don't put something like this on Flutterby, I run across someone posting the meme and wish I could easily find the counter: Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy: No, That’s NOT What the Earth Would Look Like Without Water:

That’s not at all what it shows. What it actually depicts is the Earth’s geoid: a way of describing Earth’s gravitational field. The original graphic is a product of the MATLAB package described by Ales Bezdek (credits at that link). Here it is in all its knobby goodness:

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy Astronomy Graphics Television Marketing ]

Need to measure boarding times next time I ride the bus. Pretty sure cash is > 4.5sec/pax in practice. http://greatergreaterwashingto...s-it-would-speed-up-buses-a-lot/

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Public Transportation ]

New Research on Overcoming Loneliness. Apparently lonely people get hyper-aware of social cues...

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

Saudi Arabia lops off lots of heads, so it's fitting that they'll "head" the U.N. human rights panel... U.S. State Department “Welcomes” News That Saudi Arabia Will Head U.N. Human Rights Panel.

[ related topics: Current Events Civil Liberties ]

Why are working class kids less likely to get elite jobs? They study too hard at college.

Yep. Broken-record time: College is a lousy way to learn. The value is in the socializing.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Work, productivity and environment Education ]

More reading when I get home: Software Developers’ Perceptions of Productivity (PDF).

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

The dealer from which we bought our VW TDI just sent us a "Go Green For Less Event" email... Even though it's for BMWs, I have questions.

Good morning, Petaluma!

[ related topics: Photography ]

More sunrise

[ related topics: Photography ]

Grrrr... wondering if I'll regret waiting for the GGT101x over the SCT48x. 5 minutes late so far...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Eyes on Evidence - September 2015 (PDF), scroll down to "Mortality in people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder".

The study cohort comprised 1,922,248 people followed up for up to 32 years (24,907,560 person–years). A total of 32,061 people in the cohort had a diagnosis of AD HD (183,049 person–years of observation), 107 of whom died during follow-up. All-cause mortality was 5.85 per 10,000 person–years among people with ADHD, compared with 2.21 per 10,000 person–years in people without ADHD. The risk of death among people with ADHD was more than double that in the general population (adjusted mortality rate ratio [MRR]=2.07, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.70 to 2.50, p<0.0001).

Just had a conversation with someone yesterday about people we've known were going to burn hard and burn bright and burn out early. People we're surprised made it this long. It goes on to point out that "42 [77.8%] of these deaths were accidents"...

[ related topics: Journalism and Media Gambling ]

Breaking Bad: Are Meth Labs Justified in Dry Counties?, Fernandez, Gohmann & Pinkston:

This paper examines the influence of local alcohol prohibition on the prevalence of methamphetamine labs. Using multiple sources of data for counties in Kentucky, we compare various measures of meth manufacturing in wet, moist, and dry counties. Our preferred estimates address the endogeneity of local alcohol policies by using as instrumental variables data on religious affiliations in the 1930s, when most local-option votes took place. Alcohol prohibition status is influenced by the percentage of the population that is Baptist, consistent with the “bootleggers and Baptists” model. Our results suggest that the number of meth lab seizures in Kentucky would decrease by 24.4 percent if all counties became wet.

Via Marginal Revolution

[ related topics: Religion Drugs Interactive Drama ]

No, renaming the .xlsx file to end in .xls does not make it a .xls file. Give you an "A" for effort, though.

Car industry 'buried report revealing US car safety flaws over fears for TTIP deal'.

The major study was commissioned by the car industry to show that existing EU and US safety standards were broadly similar.

But the research actually established that American models are much less safe when it comes to front-side collisions, a common cause of accidents that often result in serious injuries.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Bay Area History Current Events Automobiles ]

How's your day going?

$ history | grep perl

*** Error in `bash': free(): invalid pointer: 0x000000000098e9c0 ***

[ related topics: Perl Open Source hubris ]

I came here to chew bubblegum, and to allocate IPv4 addresses... And I am all out of... damn it.

Saved for later watching: Watch 'The Warriors' Recreate Their Last Subway Ride Home

[ related topics: Movies Current Events Public Transportation ]

When even Forbes understands what's going on... Anti-virus Software Could Make You Less Secure Because Vendors Are Ignoring Security Best Practices:

We’ve written before about how antivirus software is not only resource-intensive but in some cases can make you less secure because it can be hacked itself. Now there’s new evidence that Kaspersky Lab’s antivirus software contains bugs which could be remotely exploited in targeted attacks, as Thomas Fox-Brewster reported yesterday. Some of these bugs are detailed in a blog post written by information security engineer Tavis Ormandy, a member of Google’s Project Zero vulnerability research team.

[ related topics: Weblogs virus Invention and Design Software Engineering ]

https://twitter.com/fl1bbl3/status/647174449167527936

[ related topics: Photography Archival ]

A little bit of color in those clouds

[ related topics: Photography ]

SC transit 48x bike rack is full. Wonder how late the GGT 101x will be this morning?

[ related topics: Bicycling Public Transportation ]

RT Eλf Sternberg ‏@elfsternberg:

The time of "peak horse" passed with the invention of the car. We're approaching the time of "peak human:" http://www.bradford-delong.com...owth-is-this-time-different.html

Just to get the title of that link in here: Technological Progress Anxiety: Thinking About "Peak Horse" and the Possibility of "Peak Human"

[ related topics: Automobiles Economics ]

A comic to add to my reads: Melanie Gillman: As The Crow Flies.

(Recommended in Erika Moen's twitter stream some time ago, just closing out tabs)

RT drake diss track ‏@smallspooky

won't rest until boys are kissing at parties to get attention from girls

Twitter has introduced "Highlights", and, yes, it's like being 9 and waiting in a dentist office with nothing to read all over again.

UK, France and Germany lobbied for flawed car emissions tests, documents reveal

The WLTP test was supposed to remove loopholes that had allowed a gap between real world CO2 emissions and test cycle ones to develop, which EU consultants have estimated at up to 20%.

But the UK lobbied for car makers to be allowed to exploit flexibilities such as externally charging their batteries to full before testing. The Department for Transport also argued that the best available technologies should be shunned in favour of outdated ‘inertia classes’, which involve manually adding 100 kilo weights to the car to see what effect greater weight on the amount of CO2 the car pumps out.

[ related topics: Nature and environment Automobiles Pedal Power Bicycling Global Warming ]

Stop the drone panic – pilots should take their own advice:

This is the latest example of the “safety fad” problem in aviation, a type of industry-wide ADHD. For a few years in the mid-2000s, runway incursions were going to kill us all. Reports of these events skyrocketed almost overnight, and serious FAA presentations warned of huge fatalities if something didn’t change. Millions were spent on technology and training.

And then it was bird strikes, and then... it's devices lighter, smaller, and far less prevalent than birds.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Cool Science Aviation Douglas Adams Birds ]

Your fingerprints should be changed regularly and include mixed case, numbers and punctuation https://threatpost.com/5-6-mil...rints-stolen-in-opm-hack/114784/

[ related topics: Law ]

RT Mark Reid, MD @medicalaxioms :

[ related topics: Photography Movies Beer Archival ]

Effects of psilocybin on hippocampal neurogenesis and extinction of trace fear conditioning

Or: psychedelic mushrooms help regrow neurons, erasing fear paralysis in mice, which makes them something worth exploring in PTSD treatments in humans. Of course the fact that it can help make brains healthy following trauma is probably why they're illegal...

[ related topics: Health ]

Practice hexagon teacup chain at the Leather Lace square dance https://youtu.be/h30gS4vyFyw

And the hex singing call https://youtu.be/l0Wz4ITJXjY

Skipping Folsom Street Fair to go bicycle northern Sonoma County. Leather (chamois), pain, yeah, it's similar... 🚲❤

[ related topics: Pedal Power Bicycling ]

Fresh biscuits, with elderberry jam made by a neighbor. I can stop any time I want to...

Lenovo Caught (3rd Time) Pre-Installing Spyware on its Laptops

[ related topics: virus ]

I'm doing some legitimate research to prepare for a couple of upcoming presentations. And I've scared myself as I understand how easy some of the "theoretical" hacks out there are and how well they work. What did I do that was so scary? Trust a certificate authority that I created and then play with something that can create fake, while proxying real sites with that fake CA signed cert to the target system. I quickly caught and recovered credentials to an HTTPS basic auth site, as well as Twitter and Facebook (cookie/session auth, but captured original login/password). My local web browser: No warnings once I trusted and installed the CA root cert.

What I realize now, beyond bench racing / theory, is how important, in the current design of the net, that trusted CA's are. I really don't think they deserve the trust we have given them.

We need a better end to end mechanism.

For reference, my home playground is: OpenWRT with "Karma", and a Linux system with mitmproxy...

[ related topics: security Work, productivity and environment ]

45.7 miles. And stopped by Occidental Leather so Ted could show off his handiwork

[ related topics: Photography ]

Turns out the speed of light is really really really constant: Direct terrestrial test of Lorentz symmetry in electrodynamics to 10⁻¹⁸

[ related topics: Nature and environment ]

"Kung fu movies and musicals are really good analogies for porn" - Shine Louise Houston

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Movies ]

Things I hate about Perl: Trying to figure out control flow between modules while debugging buggy CPAN packages.

[ related topics: Perl Open Source hubris ]

Pertinent to the infamous bandwidth bet: Kyle Mahan: "Celestial events are the closest thing kids will know to missing an episode of a TV show and having to wait for re-runs to see it"

https://kylewm.com/2015/09/cel...-are-the-closest-thing-kids-will

[ related topics: Children and growing up Technology and Culture broadband Television ]

RT Jaydriver Error ‏@PedestrianError:

As much as bike thieves suck, there's tragic irony in realizing someone could get more jail for stealing your bike than killing you on it.

[ related topics: Bicycling ]

I admit, we like property shopping. Nancy and I "kick doors" (metaphorically) all the time. So a small office building not far away has been for sale. We looked. Seems solid, has two happy renters and a third area that needs an overhaul to be rentable. It's held by an estate and they seem to be anxious to sell. We lowballed an offer, reasonable but very low.

They accepted.

I'm a bit into panic mode.. gotta get financing.. etc.. Nancy is already planning renovations of the third area.

What I'd love to do is convince where I work to become the third tenant... but that may not be possible for other reasons. The good news, I think if Nancy and I fix it up, it'll rent quickly.

Will provide details when we close. Going to be a fun story.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Current Events Work, productivity and environment Douglas Adams ]

RT Andrew Woods ‏@awoods:

You know who does Test Driven Development really well? Volkswagen.

Lunch run 3.5mi, 9:26 min/mi. Need to mix it up to change my times, maybe start running with people again?

[ related topics: Sports ]

Fascinating: You Can Now Turn Off Ads On Techdirt.

RT Lesley Carhart ‏@hacks4pancakes:

Think of the "internet of things" as letting 100 strangers walk through your home or work every day to press buttons on all your appliances.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Net Culture ]

Morningstar: VW just the latest in long history of cheating car companies

[ related topics: Web development Content Management Current Events Automobiles ]

RT Al Neun ‏@piraticalartist:

"I used to ride a bicycle, but I found 'bi' to be too limiting. I prefer a pancycle now."

"A what?"

*Distant rumbling of countless wheels*

[ related topics: Pedal Power Bicycling ]

[ related topics: Photography ]

RT Bianca LaVagina ‏@AnitaHelmet:

Humans are infinitely able to evolve and adapt. For instance, I've learned to masturbate with the opposite hand I use to type with.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

mistressmatisse Retweeted Scuba @ScubaSteve732:

Looking forward to a wearable device that performs regular prostate checks.

RT @mistressmatisse:

I have a wearable device that checks prostates. Other people's, though.

UCLA’s free Energy Atlas uncovers L.A. buildings’ role in greenhouse gas emissions

... The atlas reveals for the first time that the most inefficient buildings in the county aren’t the oldest, but structures from the 1970s. Users of the atlas will find that residents of Malibu use the most energy per capita and the denizens of Avalon on Catalina Island use the least. And while homes in many low-income neighborhoods are less efficient per square foot than homes in wealthy neighborhoods, well-off neighborhoods use more energy per person. For example, the average person consumes 10 times as much electricity in Malibu as in Bell, and countywide, wealthy areas consume more than three times as much energy as poor areas. ...

Via Research Buzz.

[ related topics: Cool Science Architecture ]

CJ passed along this reminder of times gone by...

I believe this to be the work of Alexander Medvedev: https://twitter.com/go_to_up https://society6.com/product/adam--eve-ned_print#1=45

Interview at http://blog.redbubble.com/2015...xander-medvedev-gotoup/?ref=home

[ related topics: Photography Work, productivity and environment Archival ]

Nerves rattled by highly suspicious Windows Update delivered worldwide: Strange payload raises concerns that Windows Update has been hacked

Edit: Microsoft says it was a rest gone awry http://www.zdnet.com/article/m...ued-a-test-windows-update-patch/

[ related topics: Microsoft ]

Hey, my friend Debra Hyde was doing some sort of tweet storm about now, so I'm helping her sell lesbian erotica! http://www.debrahyde.com/history-mystery-and-sapphic-passion-in/

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]