Flutterby™! From 2016-04-01 to 2016-04-29

RT emery lord ‏@emerylord:

i fell in love the way i fall asleep: slowly, while reliving every embarrassing thing i've ever done & worrying about things i can't control

Cannabis induces a clinical response in patients with Crohn's disease: a prospective placebo-controlled study.:

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

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

And some days the advertising is "ha ha only serious": https://twitter.com/esurance/status/715555791298670593

[ related topics: Consumerism and advertising ]

AR/VR isn't about the technology, it's about the pipelines to build content... https://twitter.com/grumpygamer/status/715588038458368000

OH: "Hand me the hard reset button. No, the one with the two-foot handle."

Awesome: Missouri Rep to Colleagues: Please Stop Saying 'Physical' Instead of 'Fiscal':

“Whereas, on occasion, members of the Missouri House of Representatives have used the word ‘physical’ instead of ‘fiscal’ when referring to fiscal matters including, but not limited to, fiscal review and fiscal notes…” begins House Resolution 1220, offered by Rep. Tracy McCreery.

Bonus points for the Olivia Newton John photo accompanying that article.

Via DailyKos.

[ related topics: Politics Photography Real Estate ]

Pretty much hate most weather web sites and apps. Pretty much love this: curl wttr.in/Petaluma_California

[ related topics: California Culture ]

Wait, both chat bots and virtual reality are making a comeback? We're stuck in a '90s time loop! (animates some gifs)

For further perusal: Vox looks at rates of return on building infrastructure: http://www.vox.com/2016/4/1/11...96/how-to-pay-for-infrastructure

At the Chimera open house potluck. You should come by and join and use the space

[ related topics: Photography Space & Astronomy Real Estate ]

Shadow forwarded this along, and I had a "huh, I thought they've been doing that for over a decade..." moment: Mountain bikers beware: Marin rangers to use radar guns:

“They’re going to ruin the sport if they make people go 15 miles an hour,” said Glenn Fiedler, a veteran biker who had come all the way from Austin, Texas, to take a spin on Mount Tamalpais.

To which I say: Hey, asshole, buy a Tamarancho pass. Or get off your lazy ass full suspension soft tail and ride a real bike down Eldridge Grade. We don't have to make the whole fucking county pedestrian unfriendly.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Bay Area Guns Bicycling ]

San Francisco Blues

[ related topics: Bay Area California Culture ]

Radical Cartography: Slave Insurance

What this map shows is that the slaves who were insured — or at least those for whom historical records still exist — were disproportionately skilled and urban, and the geography of slave insurance is quite different from the geography of slavery in general. Insured slaves were usually rented to others; in many ways they were similar to skilled wage-earners, except that their labor and their earnings were controlled by their owner.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Television Maps and Mapping ]

River downtown tonight

[ related topics: Photography ]

Wanna know why the ton of money we're spending on exploring V2V and I2V RF communications systems is a waste? We can't even keep up the markings necessary to let 100% of road users safely navigate, let alone put in special purpose technology for the possibility of autonomous vehicles...

Where's the lane? Self-driving cars confused by shabby U.S. roadways:

Volvo's North American CEO, Lex Kerssemakers, lost his cool as the automaker's semi-autonomous prototype sporadically refused to drive itself during a press event at the Los Angeles Auto Show.

"It can't find the lane markings!" Kerssemakers griped to Mayor Eric Garcetti, who was at the wheel. "You need to paint the bloody roads here!"

[ related topics: Automobiles Currency ]

Taxes: Filed.

[ related topics: Politics Government ]

RT Pinboard ‏@Pinboard:

I confess that the best part of the Internet of Things is watching horrible things happen to early adopters

Google's parent company is deliberately disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices.

Arlo Gilbert, CEO of medical app company Televero, is infuriated by Nest's decision. He has written a Medium post about the impending closure, labelling it a "pretty blatant 'f--k you' to every person who trusted in them and bought their hardware."

[ related topics: Net Culture ]

Tabletop Gaming has a White Male Terrorism Problem.

[ related topics: Games Race ]

The time that Tony Fadell sold me a container of hummus. .

Or: Why you should never ever ever ever buy any product that requires "cloud" integration.

RT ｅｘｃｕｓｅ ｕ ‏@omershapira:

gender pronoun: void*

Some good thoughts on identity and tear-jerking ones on family in these excerpts from Coming Out Like A Porn Star http://www.voiceamerica.com/ep...o-on-coming-out-like-a-porn-star

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Space & Astronomy Sociology Aviation - Helicopters ]

Might be worth a read as the extent of the corruption exposed by the Panama Papers becomes apparent: https://blogs.state.gov/storie...and-south-korea-trade-agreements

Local politician's campaign slogan is "...gets things done". I'm gonna sit here and ponder "things" for a little bit.

[ related topics: Politics moron ]

Public transit riders giving directions: "No, over by where you get released from booking and stuff"

[ related topics: Public Transportation ]

So much awesome in this story: 9-year-old reporter breaks crime news, posts videos, fires back at critics:

... “If you want me to stop covering news, then you get off your computers and do something about the news. There, is that cute enough for you?” ...

The MeFi Thread.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Current Events ]

In what universe is "These headphones were designed by audiophiles..." an endorsement rather than an indictment of your product?

Facebook and Twitter, around the same time. I think this sums up the difference beautifully...

[ related topics: Photography ]

Auto-correct just changed "gnome-desktop" to "gnome-deathtrap". It knows more than I do.

When you pause Ghostery to read Forbes, Forbes says "welcome to ad-light", and Ghostery still reports 33 trackers on the page.

RT Kyle Machulis @qDot:

Touching Robots Can Arouse Humans, says scientist who missed most of early alt.* Usenet groups. https://www.theguardian.com/te...uching-robots-can-arouse-humans- study-finds (via @lmorchard)

Related: When I've been around people teaching kayak rolling, those in the water doing safety often feel kinda weird about touching the boat around where people sit (even though those in the boat can't feel that touch).

[ related topics: Robotics Net Culture Boats Machinery Dan & Charlene's July 2003 San Juan Trip ]

Spies in the Skies. Neat visualizations of FBI and DHS aerial surveillance.

[ related topics: Law Enforcement ]

RT Minor Twi††er Celeb ‏@willmenaker:

Compare Bernie's vague, clueless plans to "break up the banks" & "end war", with Hillary's incredibly specific plans to not do those things

[ related topics: History ]

"Izzy, shut this off. I'm done."

Fascinating little test on gender bias... http://www.aauw.org/article/implicit-association-test/

Your phone bill surcharges at work http://arstechnica.com/busines...oject-isnt-providing-much-wi-fi/

[ related topics: moron Work, productivity and environment ]

Ugh. People who hate our community throwing litter and trash in our driveways, again.

[ related topics: Photography Community ]

Study finds police fatally shoot unarmed black men at disproportionate rates:

The study,“Fatal Shootings By US Police Officers in 2015: A Bird’s Eye View,” was conducted by criminal justice researchers from the University of Louisville and the University of South Carolina. It is being reviewed for academic publication and will be shared this week with members of the Major Cities Chiefs Police Association, which includes officials from departments in the 50 largest cities and metropolitan areas.

[ related topics: Law Enforcement Education Birds ]

First use of the Bitcoin blockchain that makes me go "whoah!": Git on BitTorrent: https://github.com/cjb/GitTorrent

Gee, PayPal, it's great that you're offering free return shipping, but I only ever use y'all for virtual product.

FEATURE - Meet Kamen Joshi, Japan's Masked Underground Idols!

Video: 仮面女子 -『元気 種☆』 / Kamen Joshi -「GENKIDANE☆」 ~English Subs~

[ related topics: Movies Segway/Ginger/IT Video ]

I wish I knew where this came from, but I think it's profound on so many levels:

(I got it by way of JWZ

[ related topics: Religion Humor Photography ]

We have acquired a feline master. Pictures of the cat once he's comfortable enough to come out from behind the toilet.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Ugh. Among the many reasons we're way overdue in replacing Feinstein: She wants to outlaw encryption http://www.sfgate.com/business...stein-pushes-bill-to-7237590.php

[ related topics: Apple Computer Law Enforcement Cryptography ]

Whoah, good point! Google Wave was, essentially, Slack: https://twitter.com/luckymethod/status/718480407751045120

A very wet Team Dogslobber finishing up

[ related topics: Photography ]

And a blown seam and taking on water meant a second place finish in this year's Bodega Bay Wooden Boat Challenge

[ related topics: California Culture Boats Machinery ]

Cat's still hiding under the bed, but we're prototyping in our usual style...

[ related topics: Photography Furniture ]

The cat emerged from under the bed. Briefly.

[ related topics: Photography Furniture ]

TIL that the need for dredging in the Petaluma River is due to hydraulic mining and agriculture http://downloads.ice.ucdavis.e...ary/conomos_1979/archive1020.PDF

Pretentiously Kawai: unpretty: Villain attempts to go back in time:

The first time a man from the future showed up at Martha Kent’s house, Clark Kent was two years old.

...

[ related topics: Real Estate ]

Walking in Annadel State Park

[ related topics: Photography ]

On Spring Creek

[ related topics: Photography Nature and environment ]

That's my second (non-consecutive) night of square dance calling where I came away feeling that that's what it's supposed to be like!

Out at Bodega Head

[ related topics: Photography ]

And this dude feeding in the mud

And this dude feeding in the mud (take 2)

[ related topics: Photography ]

In Florida rehabs, addicts are bought and sold:

Because the best way to milk insurance is to cycle addicts through detox, rehab, and outpatient programs, there’s plenty of incentive to keep them relapsing. Five recovering addicts told BuzzFeed News that some marketers give their recruits money for drugs so they test positive on urine tests when checking into treatment.

[ related topics: Drugs Health Current Events Currency Pedal Power Bicycling ]

Updating our Advance Directives. Want med students to use my body for practical jokes. Have paperwork for Stanford, want a community college

[ related topics: Community Education ]

Worth thinking about as you ponder the foreign policy positions of your favorite presidential candidate http://www.independent.co.uk/v...e-hunted-by-drones-a6980141.html

Saved for the general election race: The Time Ted Cruz Defended a Ban on Dildos: His legal team argued there was no right "to stimulate one's genitals."

The brief insisted that Texas in order to protect "public morals" had "police-power interests" in "discouraging prurient interests in sexual gratification, combating the commercial sale of sex, and protecting minors." There was a "government" interest, it maintained, in "discouraging...autonomous sex." The brief compared the use of sex toys with "hiring a willing prostitute or engaging in consensual bigamy," and it equated advertising these products with the commercial promotion of prostitution. In perhaps the most noticeable line of the brief, Cruz's office declared, "There is no substantive-due-process right to stimulate one's genitals for non-medical purposes unrelated to procreation or outside of an interpersonal relationship." That is, the pursuit of such happiness had no constitutional standing. And the brief argued there was no "right to promote dildos, vibrators, and other obscene devices." The plaintiffs, it noted, were "free to engage in unfettered noncommercial speech touting the uses of obscene devices" but not speech designed to generate the sale of these items.

RT Craig Mazin @clmazin

Ted Cruz thinks people don't have a right to "stimulate their genitals." I was his college roommate. This would be a new belief of his.

[ related topics: Politics Erotic Sexual Culture Law ]

UC Davis at least $175,000 to scrub pepper-spray references from Internet, including removing the damning internal report that used to be at http://reynosoreport.ucdavis.edu/reynoso-report.pdf

If you need a reminder of how this wasn't a bad apple, but was mismanagement all the way up the fucking chain to the Chancellor's office, Brad Hicks' summary is still on the web and should get more Google Juice.

In fact, that should be the first hit for UC Davis or Police Lt. John Pike or Chancellor Katehi or Chief Spicuzza.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Interactive Drama Food Current Events Law Enforcement Net Culture Rocky Horror Picture Show ]

Working down my email list: Shadow forwarded along this animated GIF that has a few things I need to try. The cheese grater from a can trick looks nicer than most of the commercial graters I've bought...

[ related topics: Animation Work, productivity and environment ]

Dude parked in the entrance ramp to the little car road #whatarepedestrians

[ related topics: Photography Automobiles ]

In case you wondered why using a Blackberry for state information (or backdoors in general) might be a bad idea https://news.vice.com/article/...berrys-global-decryption-key-how

[ related topics: Law Current Events Law Enforcement ]

A little evening goofiness from the 2016 Bodega Bay Wooden Boat Challenge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzl1HZOcB5U

[ related topics: Movies California Culture Boats Machinery ]

No, email, there is no such thing as a "complimentary webinar": You're asking for my time and attention.

When you hear mention of a Patreon, say "oh, I should fund this", and then hear your name in the credits. @dsawyer is podcasting again!

How a Cam Girl Conspiracy Theory Sparked Masturbation Innovation

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Sexual Culture Conspiracy Government ]

Via Shadow: As it turns out, most people cannot draw a bike.

These are pulled from Velocipedia by Gianluca Gimini, who asked people to draw bikes, and eventually:

I decided my job was going to be presenting the potential and the beauty inside these sketches. I selected those that I found most interesting and genuine and diverse, then rendered them as if they were real. I became the executor of these two minute projects by people who were mainly non-designers and confirmed my suspicion: everyone, regardless his age and job, can come up with extraordinary, wild, new and at times brilliant inventions.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Invention and Design Heinlein Bicycling ]

Enron redux: Shell bilked California in energy crisis, judge finds

In one exchange, a trader notes, “I don’t know how honest that is, but we’re not in the honesty game, are we?” Another replies, “We’re in optimizing. It’s not a question of honesty. ... It’s a question of optimization.”

[ related topics: Games Law California Culture ]

Hey, I know a bunch of people who know this guy: This Virgin America Gate Agent Wins At Life With His Hilarious Boarding Signs

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

Giant bubbles using guar gum.

[ related topics: Movies ]

Nature Communications: Disease dynamics and costly punishment can foster socially imposed monogamy. Abstract:

Socially imposed monogamy in humans is an evolutionary puzzle because it requires costly punishment by those who impose the norm. Moreover, most societies were—and are—polygynous; yet many larger human societies transitioned from polygyny to socially imposed monogamy beginning with the advent of agriculture and larger residential groups. We use a simulation model to explore how interactions between group size, sexually transmitted infection (STI) dynamics and social norms can explain the timing and emergence of socially imposed monogamy. Polygyny dominates when groups are too small to sustain STIs. However, in larger groups, STIs become endemic (especially in concurrent polygynist networks) and have an impact on fertility, thereby mediating multilevel selection. Punishment of polygynists improves monogamist fitness within groups by reducing their STI exposure, and between groups by enabling punishing monogamist groups to outcompete polygynists. This suggests pathways for the emergence of socially imposed monogamy, and enriches our understanding of costly punishment evolution.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Nature and environment ]

Mercola settles with FTC over lies about tanning beds and cancer http://www.chicagotribune.com/...les-0415-biz-20160414-story.html

[ related topics: Furniture ]

Clear day: Mount Diablo back there

[ related topics: Photography ]

For all the times I've been in Wild Flour Bakery, I've never noticed this mural

[ related topics: Photography ]

Up in the Groove of Old Trees

[ related topics: Photography Nature and environment ]

Burl

[ related topics: Photography ]

Charlene feeding a snow leopard at the The Wild Cat Education and Conservation Fund

[ related topics: Photography Education ]

Hey, Petaluma: 4/17 (today) 5:30, #10 Mission Drive. I'm throwin' pork roast in the smoker. We'll do some veggies. Pot luck dinner anyone?

Finding and fixing leaks in my irrigation system is way nicer with my $35 smart phone controlled system... https://github.com/danlyke/irrigation

Ugh. The 8 soldered copper joints are fine, but one of my PVC joints blew out. Roof irrigation waits 'til Wednesday. Sigh.

Left on the dial: With young people trading AM/FM for streaming, will radio find a home in your next car?

America's time spent listening to non-Internet audio sources is still at 82%, but the AM/FM portion of that is just 54% and shrinking relatively quickly.

[ related topics: Music Net Culture Pop Culture Automobiles ]

Pentagon misled lawmakers on military sexual assault cases:

There also is nothing in the records that supports the primary reason the Pentagon told Congress about the cases in the first place: To cast top military brass as hard-nosed crime fighters who insisted on taking the cases to trial after civilian law enforcement said no.

PRESS RELEASE: Protect Our Defenders Report & AP Investigation Show the Pentagon Misled Congress:

Washington, D.C. – Today, Protect Our Defenders (POD) released a report, “Debunked: Fact-Checking the Pentagon’s Claims Regarding Military Justice,” on the heels of an Associated Press investigation that shows the Pentagon misled Congress in order to preserve commanders’ control over sexual assault cases and block critically needed reform that was within a handful of votes of passing.

[ related topics: Politics Erotic Sexual Culture Law Enforcement Television Archival Model Building ]

Started a high CPU test that'll probably run for a week or two in a VM on my desktop workstation. This will not end well.

We watched the real-time displays this morning as a coworker finished Boston in 2:41. Fifty years ago, Roberta ‘Bobbi’ Gibb defied social norms when, with a hoodie over her head, she rose from her hiding spot in Hopkinton and ran 26.2 miles into history.

Two months earlier, she had written from her home in San Diego to the Boston Athletic Association to request a marathon application. Race director Will Cloney sent her a terse reply, essentially: No, she could not enter. The Boston Marathon is sanctioned by the Amateur Athletics Union, and AAU regulations prohibit women from racing more than 1.5 miles. Besides, the reply went, women are not physiologically capable of covering 26.2 miles on foot.

How far we've come. And how far we have left to go.

[ related topics: Movies Sports Flowers ]

Everyone plays a part in chainsaw safety http://dearestdistrict5.blogsp...ays-part-in-chainsaw-safety.html

A couple of different reworkings of the same press release: Seattle Times: Americans are abandoning their wired Internet for mobile-data-only. Washington Post: New data: Americans are abandoning wired home Internet.

Seventeen percent of households making between $75,000 and $100,000 are mobile-only now, compared with 8 percent two years ago. And 15 percent of households earning more than $100,000 are mobile-only, versus 6 percent in 2013.

I think the original is Evolving Technologies Change the Nature of Internet Use:

[ related topics: Weblogs Nature and environment Invention and Design Current Events Television Net Culture Seattle ]

2.1 miles in 20 minutes with hoped for 10 minute headways? If you're in a hurry, go on foot (like SF Muni). https://mobile.twitter.com/beyonddc/status/722489139615178752

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Bay Area Public Transportation ]

5,000 years developing written language, and now Unicode has a hieroglyph penis. We're done! https://twitter.com/unicode/status/722133439726505984

See also: http://unicode.scarfboy.com/?s=U%2B130BA

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

That slippery slope is well greased: U.S. spy court judge dismissed privacy advocate's concerns about data use

“The risks that the results of such a query will be viewed or otherwise used in connection with an investigation that is unrelated to national security appears to be remote, if not entirely theoretical,” Hogan wrote. “The court is not prepared to find a constitutional deficiency based upon a hypothetical problem.”

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Privacy Law ]

RT Honourable Speaker ‏@Pyfagorass:

Slack, the digital open plan office.

FBI warned agents not to share tech secrets with prosecutors:

In one, an official warned agents in Minneapolis that the FBI’s Engineering Research Facility — where some of the bureau’s most sophisticated tech secrets are hatched — had “expressed concerns about Tech Agents revealing technical details to Case Agents and especially to AUSAs,” using the acronym for assistant U.S. attorneys. “There have been several instances of AUSAs becoming familiar with our technology, then resigning and becoming defense lawyers.”

The records that this story is based on.

[ related topics: Law Current Events Law Enforcement ]

8020 extrusions plus some wheels and hinges and chains and pedals = awesome kids trike/scooter/bike thing: https://www.infentorides.com/

[ related topics: Children and growing up Bicycling ]

OH: "if i ever have to interview anyone again i hope to just do the replicant test totally dead pan"

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Yep. This is basically why my politics have shifted over the years https://mobile.twitter.com/amydentata/status/715234678790172673

[ related topics: Politics ]

The SmartyKat Hot Pursuit is a winner...

[ related topics: Photography ]

False Plagiarism Accusation Against Shaun King Shows Dangers of Online Mob Journalism

[ related topics: Journalism and Media Television ]

And the slippery slope went vertical: Public advocate: FBI’s use of PRISM surveillance data is unconstitutional:

The judge noted that there was no statutory requirement that all activities involving PRISM data serve “solely a foreign intelligence requirement.” He said that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which covers PRISM, “expressly requires” that the government permit the retention of data that is evidence of a crime regardless of whether it relates to foreign intelligence or national security.

[ related topics: moron Law Law Enforcement ]

Okay, Systemd/Centos7: I've disabled ntpdate and timesyncd and have no '*ntp*' processes, but something is still setting the time. WTF?

[ related topics: Handicaps & Disabilities ]

Bagheera is unamused by your shenanigans

[ related topics: Photography Gambling ]

View from Helen Putnam park

[ related topics: Photography Gambling ]

So that unreasoned gibbering about "OMG! A drone (ie: model aircraft) struck a BA airliner!!1!". Yeah: plastic bag. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...sh-airways-flight-may-have-been/

[ related topics: Aviation Current Events Gambling ]

Bay area: Charlene is having trouble finding a wet suit that fits. Where's the dive sho with a relatively large inventory to try on?

[ related topics: California Culture ]

RT Dave Polaschek ‏@DavePolaschek:

Best description of the IoT heard lately: “The eternal September has come to your toaster.” // @internetofshit

Mensch: Concerned about veteran with PTSD, judge orders him to jail and serves the time with him:

Serna had been charged with driving while intoxicated. He was sentenced to the 24-hour jail stint after admitting to Olivera that he didn’t tell the truth about his latest urinalysis test.

Olivera saw Serna trembling when he turned himself in to serve the sentence, and that’s when Olivera decided to serve the time with him.

[ related topics: Content Management Law Current Events Woodworking ]

A Protocol For Dying, in a last blog post, a dying person lays out the dues and don'ts of dying and talking with the terminally ill.

After two decades, the conversation that changed EVERYTHING, in which Susan Kitchens' family starts talking and puts together a different conclusion about the deaths of a set of grandparents.

[ related topics: Weblogs Sociology Current Events ]

A rant I left in the Facebook comments to a friend who posted https://storify.com/zatchry/th...electoral-left-between-sanders-c

So I've been a conditional Sanders supporter: I'll consider voting for him as long as I think he can't really win, because I think that'd be disastrous for the 2020 Presidential elections. With that background, I see a few flaws in Giordano's argument:

1. The whole HRC (Human Rights Campaign) mismanagement of the Prop 8 situation here in California shows that you need radicals to shift the Overton window. We don't get change by trying to "pass". Dismissing a group as "overwhelmingly defined by a history of failed activist ventures" is dismissing the broadening of possibilities very valuable work that those activists provide.
2. Worse than dismissing the people who are opening up possibilities, he's dismissing the people who keep trying. Yeah, you can win. If you play their game to their goals.
3. I also know enough people of color who are Bernie supporters that I'm not totally buying the "rural white male crossover are the only supporters Bernie's got" narrative.

Now I do totally agree with him that "The idea that there is some super woke majority out there waiting to lay siege to the palace is an overwhelmingly white delusion." But it's hella useful to leverage that delusion. Sanders is gonna be the top Democrat on the Budget Committee. Leverage that with the base of crossover voters he's attracted, voters who might otherwise have abstained or vote Republican in November, and suddenly he's playing a different game.

And if he drops out now, he loses the mindshare of those people. If he runs through, he may end up coming out of this with a decent sized political block.

So, yes, it's great that people want to be all "ra ra Hillary". I'll vote for her come November because reproductive freedoms trump everything, and no Republican is going to do better on the policy issues I disagree with her over (1st Amendment issues, cryptography and law enforcement issues, foreign policy). But let's be playing the long game here.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Privacy Games Free Speech moron Work, productivity and environment Law Enforcement Television Civil Liberties California Culture Cryptography Race ]

RT Common White Girl ‏@CommonWhiteGrls:

marriage is kinda weird though because it’s like ‘i love you, lets get the law involved so you can’t leave”

[ related topics: Sociology Race Marriage ]

Hiking up Mt Burdell just north of Novato. Spectacular day!

[ related topics: Photography Nature and environment ]

Fewer flowers on Mt Burdell than I expected

[ related topics: Photography ]

What you can't see in this picture is the wonderful sound of burbling flowing water

[ related topics: Photography ]

Guessing this is a bunker left over from the attempts to contain Novato and keep it from infecting surrounding towns

[ related topics: Photography ]

Playing with brass engraving on the CNC router

[ related topics: Photography Model Building Woodworking ]

A few tweaks to work out, but I think we can do something with this

[ related topics: Photography Work, productivity and environment ]

So the $15 cat toy didn't really have enough weight. I guess we could have screwed out to a board, but...

[ related topics: Photography ]

Yeah, we may have a cat toy problem

[ related topics: Photography ]

Yes, season 5 episode 1 of Silicon Valley, dude left to work for my web site... #flutterbY

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Revealed: nearly all new diesel cars exceed official pollution limits. 97% of diesel automobiles emit more NOx than they're supposed to in real world driving.

Surprisingly, the tiny number of models that did not exceed the standard were mostly Volkswagens...

[ related topics: Invention and Design Automobiles ]

FBI warns farmers their crop databases are in danger.

The memo is apparently Smart Farming May Increase Cyber Targeting Against US Food and Agriculture Sector (PDF).

Missing from this is any suggestion to use strong encryption...

[ related topics: Food Law Enforcement Cryptography Databases ]

Charlie Jane Anders: The Moment When Science Fiction Split off From Competence Porn:

But at some point, including scientists as heroes became a bit of a taboo in science fiction, with the notable exception of Walter Bishop in Fringe. (And in the U.K., Doctor Who is a holdout.) We're only allowed to explore new science or strange ideas if our hero is an "everyman" who has no clue what's going on.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Erotic Sexual Culture Health Invention and Design ]

Two squares tonight at the Vallejo Pioneers. Harder to keep track of all those people...

Nothing But Light. Photographer Anastasia Kuba says:

“Nothing But Light” explores concepts of boundaries,vulnerability, and consent. We all experience the world through our bodies. The body is the easiest target for disrespect, worship, objectification, shame, neglect, control, and attachment. The violation of a person’s dignity often begins with disrespect of their body, and restoration of control begins with the acknowledgment that a person’s body matters and inherently deserves respect. We crave to be seen and accepted, but opening up, we lose control over the consequences.

Very interesting set of nudes.

Via This NSFW Photo Series Is Allowing People to Love Their Bodies Again

[ related topics: Photography Erotic ]

From the LotSS podcast: "The internet lets us flesh out our closets so they feel kind of like home."

[ related topics: Net Culture ]

German nuclear plant infected with computer viruses, operator says.

A nuclear power plant in Germany has been found to be infected with computer viruses, but they appear not to have posed a threat to the facility's operations because it is isolated from the Internet, the station's operator said on Tuesday.

Thereby demonstrating a severe lack of understanding the difference between the problem in this particular case vs systemic failure:

The other gem from this article:

As an example, Hypponen said he had recently spoken to a European aircraft maker that said it cleans the cockpits of its planes every week of malware designed for Android phones. The malware spread to the planes only because factory employees were charging their phones with the USB port in the cockpit.

It further goes on to say that this wasn't a threat to the aircraft, but could pass on the virus to other phones plugged into the charger. Which says two things:

1. What's it doing in the cockpit? Is this part of the in-flight entertainment system?
2. Watch carefully what you charge your phone off of.

Okay, three things:

3. You're still taking off your shoes at the TSA checkpoint. Just sayin'.

[ related topics: Movies virus Aviation Law Work, productivity and environment Net Culture Shoes ]

Holy crap: This movie can totally get funded: Reverse Spy Flick

[ related topics: Movies ]

Detecting the use of "curl | bash" server side.

In case you expect that users will be checking to see if you're sending malicious payloads before they pipe it to bash.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Law ]

FBI admits overstating hair analysis for the prosecution over decades.

Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far, according to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the Innocence Project, which are assisting the government with the country’s largest post-conviction review of questioned forensic evidence.

Remember, these are the folks who want your crypto backdoors.

[ related topics: moron Law Enforcement Cryptography ]

When order tracking has shown your package in Green River Wyoming for the last 3 days... #Iwantmyinstantgratificationnow

I was reading the latest missive from Fucking Inappropriate, Somewhere in Afghanistan; 29.SEPT.12, and thinking that if we just, for on week, skipped the foreign affairs section of the newspaper and read writing from people who were actually there, what we demanded of our politicians would be so different.

Then slightly later that day, I made some comment about administrative costs and the cost of college, and was schooled:

• A new report suggests that while growing personnel and construction costs are a factor in the rising price of public higher education, a decline in state funding is the real culprit.
• The Pillaging of America's State Universities

both of which (and many more), make very strong cases that state universities are costing more because we're funding them less. But, I asked myself, how could that be? I mean the New York Times says that the cost is due to administrative overhead:

Even more strikingly, an analysis by a professor at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, found that, while the total number of full-time faculty members in the C.S.U. system grew from 11,614 to 12,019 between 1975 and 2008, the total number of administrators grew from 3,800 to 12,183 — a 221 percent increase.

And then I started reading the article more carefully. Seeing what it wasn't saying, things like:

• How are state and federal dollars increasing relative to attendance?
• Per a conversation with another friend in education, are those "administrators" really low-level administrative assistances, other reclassified work, or possibly really ways to provide additional jobs to students?

And I realized: Oh, wait: The New York Times. Of the infamous lifestyle articles that are so fun to mock. The paper that parroted unchallenged the propaganda that threw us into the Iraq war. The paper that real journalists decided to not include in The Panama Papers release. Of course they're just republishing some think tank lobbying organizations' agenda.

And then I made the connection between that style of news and what we get for foreign policy reporting. And I realized that while the NYT may be a good example of pretty egregious, it's a continuum.

I don't know how to fix media, but I suspect we can start by, just a few times a week, reading the thoughts of people on the ground and skipping the articles that are poorly rewritten press releases of some think tank with an agenda.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Invention and Design History Writing Current Events Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment California Culture Machinery Fabrication Education New York Model Building ]

Posting this somewhat for the content, but mostly because: Holy crap! This is the first time I've seen a popular site acknowledge the press release from which the article was rewritten! Hallefreakinlujah! We need to make citing sources something we demand from our media outlets, congratulations and major kudos to Science Daily for taking this step!

Science Daily: Risks of harm from spanking confirmed by analysis of 5 decades of research.

Taken from UT News: Risks of Harm from Spanking Confirmed by Analysis of Five Decades of Research

The study, published in this month’s Journal of Family Psychology, looks at five decades of research involving over 160,000 children. The researchers say it is the most complete analysis to date of the outcomes associated with spanking, and more specific to the effects of spanking alone than previous papers, which included other types of physical punishment in their analyses.

“Our analysis focuses on what most Americans would recognize as spanking and not on potentially abusive behaviors,” says Elizabeth Gershoff, an associate professor of human development and family sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. “We found that spanking was associated with unintended detrimental outcomes and was not associated with more immediate or long-term compliance, which are parents’ intended outcomes when they discipline their children.”

[ related topics: Children and growing up Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Sociology Current Events Journalism and Media Education ]

Saved for conversation with Charlene: Is Hillary Clinton really the foreign policy super-hawk she is portrayed to be?

[ related topics: Politics Birds ]

I think I linked this in the past few weeks, but if I haven't, you should read Eric Weinstein, director of Thiel Capital: Anthropic Capitalism And The New Gimmick Economy.

The anthropic viewpoint on such heuristics, more common in physics than economics, would lead us to ask “Is society now focused on market capitalism because it is a fundamental theory, or because we have just lived through the era in which it was possible due to remarkable coincidences?”

Jumping off from this, Wherefor the sexual economy? - Elf M. Sternberg :

So, sex. There's a reason we talk about bars as "meat markets," and when we discuss the questions of marriage and family we use the phrase "the sexual economy." The question is, does Weinstein's observation have any impact on getting laid?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Erotic Sexual Culture tolkien Invention and Design History Sociology Economics Marriage ]

Whore Next Door: The Zoo Story.

I've heard that Zootopia is amazing and I should go see it, but Charlene and I saw the trailer with the DMV scene, and it left us totally flat. I've read a few other things on how it tackles racial issues that make it sound slightly more interesting, but Siouxsie's take on it makes me more intrigued.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Law Enforcement Woodworking ]