Flutterby™! From 2018-07-01 to 2018-07-30

YAML: probably not so great after all

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

More from Chihuly glass

[ related topics: Photography ]

"Accelerate Evolution" does not seem like a slogan that would go will with an outdoor equipment store...

[ related topics: Photography ]

RT Peter Flax Peter Flax @Pflax1

If helmets are like seat belts, why do countries with the lowest usage of helmets have the lowest fatality rates for cyclists, while the nation with the highest rate of helmet use (US) has the highest death rate?

Cyclists need safe places to ride, not trope-tweeting bureaucrats

while retweeting Sean Kilcarr @AASHTOsean:

Helmets to bicyclists are what seat belts are to motorists: Gotta wear 'em. Since #transportation planning includes a lot more biking, state DOTs need to know about it. @aashtospeaks @NSCsafety @GHSAHQ @NHTSAgov @USDOT @BikeLeague @virginia_tech @vtnews https://www.bloomberg.com/news...bled-if-they-lack-latest-helmets

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Bay Area Current Events Bicycling ]

RT Jason Caffoe Jason Caffoe @jcaffoe:

Ursula K. Le Guin on cultural perceptions of fantasy: “The direction of escape is toward freedom. So what is ‘escapism’ an accusation of?”

[ related topics: Erotic Privacy Sociology Civil Liberties Government ]

Going to the dinner banquet

[ related topics: Photography ]

Tia took this picture of us at dinner

[ related topics: Photography ]

NY Times: Trump Administration in Chaotic Scramble to Reunify Migrant Families:

Records linking children to their parents have disappeared, and in some cases have been destroyed, according to two officials of the Department of Homeland Security, leaving the authorities struggling to identify connections between family members.

Emphasis mine. This appears to be entirely a scheme to transfer public funds to private prison operators, and profit off of adoption fees. This is, in every meaningful interpretation of the word, trafficking.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Sociology ]

Residents called for help as Irma rolled in. These on-duty cops drank Coronas:

After the hurricane, Sajdak reported the party to a superior officer.

“I was upset about lives being put at risk, lives being put in danger," Sajdak said in an interview with an internal affairs investigator. He said that McCready was making operational decisions for the team while drinking that night. “Lieutenant McCready, who was in charge of our Landfall Team, had jeopardized the lives of the officers that were working and the residents by drinking alcohol.”

[ related topics: Current Events Work, productivity and environment Law Enforcement Community ]

Defense contractor detained migrant kids in vacant Phoenix office building:

Videos shot by an alarmed neighbor show children dressed in sweatsuits being led – one so young she was carried – into the 3,200-square-foot building in early June. The building is not licensed by Arizona to hold children, and the contractor, MVM Inc., has claimed publicly that it does not operate “shelters or any other type of housing” for children.

The video.

If you see something, say something. Preferably to a news organization.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Interactive Drama Movies Current Events Video Real Estate ]

Allow me to add my "holy cramp what a cluster flock" to the chorus of complaints from those leaving the convention about SeaTac airport security...

[ related topics: Aviation ]

Oh come on, we know why you're really visiting Sonoma, and you can't take it on the airplane, you'll have to smoke it before you leave.

[ related topics: Photography Aviation ]

And now we get to the time in Cocoa programming when we're unsure whether the type is NSTabView or NStabView, and we may actually prefer the latter.

[ related topics: Software Engineering ]

Maybe I don't understand jail, but Paul Manafort has a laptop and cell phone. I thought inmates were generally restricted to special purpose electronics with ludicrous markups https://www.washingtonpost.com...1e8-8f6c-46cb43e3f306_story.html

[ related topics: Wireless ]

Good morning from Schollenberger Park

Good morning from Schollenberger Park (this time with the picture attached)

[ related topics: Photography ]

I don't wanna judge Cocoa too harshly, but it demonstrates something that searching for how to do control layout programmatically instead gives a gazillion tutorials on how to do basic XCode...

[ related topics: Law Graphic Design ]

Two FBI officials say the state of forensics is fine, here's why they're wrong. From fingerprints to DNA, why that evidence isn't as clear cut as the expert witness would have you believe.

[ related topics: Movies Current Events Law Enforcement ]

Victorian era Philadelphia bicycle route maps

(Hat tip to Tara at Research Buzz)

[ related topics: Maps and Mapping Pedal Power Bicycling ]

AppKit: Sure, you can instantiate a control! You're just gonna have to always call setTranslatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints:NO on it before you add it to anything, because that's intuitive.

Running Blind: IMPD arrests first suspected pimp in 7 months — with Backpage gone, cases have dried up

“We’ve been a little bit blinded lately because they shut Backpage down,” Daggy said. “I get the reasoning behind it, and the ethics behind it, however, it has blinded us. We used to look at Backpage as a trap for human traffickers and pimps.”

U.S. authorities seized Backpage, which has been accused of facilitating human trafficking and prostitution, in April. Legislation signed by President Donald Trump in April known as SESTA-FOSTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act and Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act) made it illegal to knowingly assist, facilitate or support sex trafficking and removed immunity for civil liability that online services previously had. The result has been that other sites like Backpage, including Craigslist’s personals section, have gone dark.

Indianapolis vice cop says SESTA/FOSTA closure of Backpage has ‘blinded’ investigators

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Ethics Sports Handicaps & Disabilities ]

The Alma has arrived. Might make logistics for launching our art boat tomorrow interesting...

[ related topics: Photography Art & Culture Boats Machinery ]

Isuppose that strictly speaking the "no parking" signage doesn't actually extend on to the sidewalk...

[ related topics: Photography Work, productivity and environment ]

The boat did not work well: too much slip in the rope drive, the paddles were too deep in the water.

[ related topics: Photography Work, productivity and environment Boats Machinery ]

Via my dad: "This waterfront needs a highway': the huge mistakes cities keep making.

Via Shadow: CeramicSpeed 99% Efficient Drive Shaft // Chain Free Bike // Eurobike 2018 (YouTube video). Looks cool although in the prototype stage, and there are some interesting mechanical issues to resolve...

[ related topics: Movies Video Bicycling ]

Not the first, won't be the last: YouTuber who claimed veganism cured her cancer dies of cancer.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

‘There were three shooters’ — Two Oklahoma citizens killed an active shooter, and it's not as simple as it sounds. Interesting read on various situations where civilians carrying killed active shooters, and some where things didn't go as cleanly.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

RT Hannah Dreier @hannahdreier

The government said kids had to be taken at the border because MS-13 gang members kept posing as families. Yesterday, the government revealed it found seven cases of fake parents: 1 was actually an uncle, 2 were grandmothers, and 4 are under investigation. https://www.aclu.org/sites/def..._joint_status_report_7_12_18.pdf

What's most amazing about the "but what about the trafficked children?" arguments that were going around is how few people have talked to those who've been in foster care. Even those who had good experiences in foster care.

[ related topics: Children and growing up moron ]

That feeling when "This document is no longer being updated. For the latest information about Apple SDKs, visit the documentation website."

[ related topics: Apple Computer ]

If I setSelectable:YES on my NSTextView, it disappears. And I can't edit the data in it. And I know it's some simple but obscure flag that I'm not setting... https://stackoverflow.com/ques...nd-disappears-with-setselectable

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

With the release of Skyscraper, "Die Hard, but in a building", and with Matt Haughey's observation that

The Skyscraper movie has done something totally unprecedented in Hollywood: Neve Campbell, plays the Rock's wife and is ONLY 2 YEARS YOUNGER THAN HIM.

to which Dan Stoza observed that

When Die Hard was released, Bonnie Bedelia was 40, 7 years *older* than Bruce Willis.

It's worth looking back at the classic: Making fists with your toes: Towards a feminist analysis of Die Hard.

Via MeFi.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Movies Marriage ]

Phil Birnbaum (of Sabermetric fame): An Important Life Lesson from Blackjack and Baseball — You gain more by not being stupid than you do by being smart.

Now, the interesting part. The same thing applies about winning and losing by accident. It's hard to beat the other teams by accident, but it's easy to lose to the other teams by accident.

[ related topics: Sports Gambling hubris ]

Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States:

In a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April and obtained recently by Motherboard, Election Systems and Software acknowledged that it had "provided pcAnywhere remote connection software … to a small number of customers between 2000 and 2006," which was installed on the election-management system ES&S sold them.

The statement contradicts what the company told me and fact checkers for a story I wrote for the New York Times in February. At that time, a spokesperson said ES&S had never installed pcAnywhere on any election system it sold. "None of the employees, … including long-tenured employees, has any knowledge that our voting systems have ever been sold with remote-access software," the spokesperson said.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Software Engineering Work, productivity and environment New York Gambling ]

Report of Fertility in a Woman with a Predominantly 46,XY Karyotype in a Family with Multiple Disorders of Sexual Development

... Of course, it should be noted that the incidence of normal fertile females who have a 46,XY karyotype is not known because it is not routine to check the karyotype in fertile women. ...

Now that we're getting the tools to really measure the biology, we're discovering just how complicated sex and gender are...

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Sociology ]

Quora answer: What's the full story behind Elon Musk's involvement with the Thai cave rescue effort? specifically Jeremy Arnold's response.

NPR: Russian Influence Campaign Sought To Exploit Americans' Trust In Local News

Another twist: These accounts apparently never spread misinformation. In fact, they posted real local news, serving as sleeper accounts building trust and readership for some future, unforeseen effort.

"They set them up for a reason. And if at any given moment, they wanted to operationalize this network of what seemed to be local American news handles, they can significantly influence the narrative on a breaking news story," Schafer told NPR. "But now instead of just showing up online and flooding it with news sites, they have these accounts with two years of credible history."

Of course if you wanted to tell me that the Russians are behind the editorial and letters to the editor pages on actual physical local newspapers in order to undermine the United States, well, that's a theory that also matches the available evidence...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama broadband Current Events ]

Ars Technica: A $225 GPS spoofer can send sat-nav-guided vehicles into oncoming traffic * is a bit of an overstatement, but the general point that if you get someone in an unfamiliar place who's overly reliant on GPS you can seriously mess with them, and that this has implications for automated vehicles, is a good one:

“Our study demonstrated the initial feasibility of manipulating the road navigation system through targeted GPS spoofing,” the researchers, from Virginia Tech, China’s University of Electronic Sciences and Technology, and Microsoft Research, wrote in an 18-page paper. “The threat becomes more realistic as car makers are adding autopilot features so that human drivers can be less involved (or completely disengaged).”

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Humor Content Management Microsoft moron Automobiles Education Maps and Mapping ]

Third-Person Effects on Publication of a Holocaust-Denial Advertisement Vincent Price, David Tewksbury, Li-Ning Huang Journal of Communication, Volume 48, Issue 2, 1 June 1998, Pages 3–26. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1998.tb02745.x

Abstract

We examine the potential of third-person effects to influence editorial behavior. Two studies investigated college students' judgments about a controversial advertisement and its suitability for publication in their college newspaper. The advertisement in question, printed in many college newspapers in the early 1990s, claimed that the Nazi campaign against the Jews in the World War II was an exaggeration. Study 1 confirmed a correlation between students' third-person effect perceptions and opposition to publishing the advertisement. Jewish students produced larger third-person effects and were significantly less willing to print the advertisement. These results suggest that those with interests at stake perceived the message as especially likely to influence others, and thus dangerous. However, a closer inspection of the data, followed up experimentally in study 2, suggests that both third-person effects and publication decisions were primarily a function of variance in subjects' perceived impact of the message on themselves, not on others. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research.

[ related topics: Religion History Journalism and Media Mathematics Education ]

CBS4 Minneapolis Minnesota: Teen Entrepreneur Gets OK To Sell ‘Old Fashioned’ Hot Dogs (Warning: Autoplay video)

Teen's hot dog stand serves up food, inspiration with Minneapolis inspectors' blessing

Authorities Were Called On A 13-Year-Old Selling Hot Dogs, But His City Had His Back

“When I realized what it was, I said, ‘No, we’re not going to just go in and shut him down like we would an unlicensed vendor,” Dan Huff, who works as the city’s environmental health director, told CNN. “We can help him get his permit. Let’s make this a positive thing and help him become a small business owner.”

[ related topics: Health Food Pop Culture Video Dogs ]

Yale University Press Release: Complementary medicine for cancer can decrease survival:

People who received complementary therapy for curable cancers were more likely to refuse at least one component of their conventional cancer treatment, and were more likely to die as a result, according to researchers from Yale Cancer Center and the Cancer Outcomes, Public Policy and Effectiveness Research Center (COPPER) at Yale School of Medicine. The findings were reported today online in JAMA Oncology.

Press Release at Yale.edu: Using only alternative medicine for cancer linked to lower survival rate:

“We became interested in this topic after seeing too many patients present in our clinics with advanced cancers that were treated with ineffective and unproven alternative therapies alone,” said the study’s senior author, Dr. James B. Yu, associate professor of therapeutic radiology at Yale Cancer Center.

JAMA Oncology: Complementary Medicine, Refusal of Conventional Cancer Therapy, and Survival Among Patients With Curable Cancers:

Findings In this cohort study of 1 901 815 patients, use of complementary medicine varied by several factors and was associated with refusal of conventional cancer treatment, and with a 2-fold greater risk of death compared with patients who had no complementary medicine use.

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

Media Matters: Study: NY Times, Wash. Post quote more than twice as many Republicans as Democrats in political coverage

[ related topics: Politics Weblogs moron Journalism and Media ]

The Atlantic: The Vindication of Cheese, Butter, and Full-Fat Milk — A new study exonerates dairy fats as a cause of early death, even as low-fat products continue to be misperceived as healthier.

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: Serial measures of circulating biomarkers of dairy fat and total and cause-specific mortality in older adults: the Cardiovascular Health Study

[ related topics: Health Invention and Design ]

Secrets Are a Captive Country — My grandfather had never told me about his trip to the Soviet Union in the sixties, but I don’t know why I was surprised. He never told me anything, not even my grandmother’s name.

When someone is forced to repeat an obvious lie, Hannah Arendt observed, even if they don’t believe the lie, through repetition of the lie they submit to the liar. They are forced to choose the world contained by the lie. Self-deception can become a matter of survival. If you are constantly affirming the lie, why not believe it? At least believe it sometimes, or with half of your mind, or because you stop being able to comprehend a world outside of the lie. When do you start to believe that Jazz is dangerous, and that it’s a slippery slope from loving jazz to betraying your family, to betraying your nation, to betraying yourself? Certain lies are exercises in power and social control. What happens when the lie is dismantled? Were the suicides after Khrushchev’s secret speech a reaction to the disclosure of these lies? Was it a question of complicity? Was the horror too much?

Via MeFi

[ related topics: Travel ]

An FBI agent I know called this the best look at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge/Burns Ranch occupation he'd seen: The real story behind Trump’s pardon of Oregon ranchers — The president is fanning a culture-war fire to help cover up his campaign to hand wilderness to mining companies.

[ related topics: History Sociology Law Enforcement California Culture Pyrotechnics ]

Rockstar - The Computer Language

But why?

Mainly because if we make Rockstar a real (and completely pointless) programming language, then recruiters and hiring managers won't be able to talk about 'rockstar developers' any more.

Also 'cos it's kinda fun and any language based on the idea of compiling Meatloaf lyrics has to be worth a look, right?

Also we can make stickers. Who doesn't want a sticker on their laptop saying 'CERTIFIED ROCKSTAR DEVELOPER'?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Software Engineering Rocky Horror Picture Show ]

Association of Multivitamin and Mineral Supplementation and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease — A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Conclusions: Our meta-analysis of clinical trials and prospective cohort studies demonstrates that MVM supplementation does not improve cardiovascular outcomes in the general population.

"But what about the trafficking?" While in ICE custody, thousands of migrants reported sexual abuse

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Yeah, radar sign, everyone's a critic. Morning run...

[ related topics: Photography ]

As I handed over $60 for my weekly hour long voice lesson yesterday, I thought about all the square dancers I've heard complain about paying $6 a night for 2 hours of dancing...

Regarding Brexit and "adequate food", remember that Stalin used strategic famine...

[ related topics: Food ]

If you are missing the Drabblecast reboot, rectify that with @daviddlevine's Charlie the Purple Giraffe Was Acting Strangely, Director's Cut: https://www.drabblecast.org/20...-giraffe-was-acting-strangely-2/

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Eros Blog: Dream Of A Bachelor-Party Pussy-Eating Class is a little rant and expansion on Buzzfeed: Sex Toys Will Never Be Able To Do The Hardest Work For You

During my tenure doing sex toy retail, I saw thousands of people attempt to wallpaper over their discomfort by buying the “right” toy to solve their problems. People dropped hundreds of dollars trying to make their partners listen to them, or find them desirable, or care about their pleasure. That’s how afraid they were to communicate. But then, who could blame them? It was clear in some cases that the partner didn’t care, or didn’t want to listen, or that the customer would be punished for speaking up for themselves. My colleagues and I gently advised many people around relationships where they were disempowered, ignored, devalued, and dehumanized without language for it.

And that's kinda the thing: Sex is about the communication and the interaction, otherwise porn and toys are way lower effort...

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

An ask.mefi post about Drill team versus cheerleading versus dance team has introduced me to "step" or "stepping", and now I've got a whole new term to explore for examples of how to approach and market square dancing.

We're gonna be out of town labor day, but I'm gonna keep an eye on the Oakland/Bay Area & Beyond - Chicago Steppin Meetup.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Bay Area California Culture Economics ]

It really is a cute town

[ related topics: Photography ]

Wait, all my new tests succeeded? I don't trust you, XCode.

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

Anti-news: Leaked emails show Columbus cops set up Stormy Daniels in strip club bust: report

Whistleblower provides emails that show Stormy Daniels’ arrest was pre-planned

A whistleblower from the City of Columbus contacted the Advocate with numerous emails between several high-ranking Columbus police detectives and VICE officers.

Inside the emails are news clippings discussing Daniels’ planned appearance in Columbus, pictures of Daniels with President Donald Trump, videos of her dancing, and even a map to the club where she would be performing, all sent days before she would pull into town on her tour bus.

Laws based on anti-sex prudery used by cops to harass women? This is my shocked face.

[ related topics: Photography Erotic Sexual Culture Current Events Law Enforcement Maps and Mapping Public Transportation Government ]

RT Rosa Astra @morganastra:

the acronym ML means many things but you can usually discern from context! for ex if they're dogmatically defending a debunked ideology, that's probably Machine Learning. or if they're using an analytical tool to predict the outcomes of certain situations, that's Marxism-Leninism

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Education ]

Masaki makes models of flooded post- apocalyptic city-scapes

Tested: How to Make Miniature Underwater Dystopian Cityscapes! (YouTube)

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

Tampa Fox 13: Another field drug test mistake sends woman to jail -- for months

Rebecca was arrested, booked, and charged with trafficking oxycodone. With no way to pay a $5,000 bond she sat in jail. "It was scary being in there and having a public defender that didn't believe me," she continued.

After her husband was able to come up with the bail money, Rebecca waited another seven months for the state crime lab to confirm the pills were, in fact, vitamins.

[ related topics: Health Current Events Currency Marriage ]

Radar evidence of subglacial liquid water on Mars

DOI: 10.1126/science.aar7268

[ related topics: Astronomy ]

Remember that gag about making Sudafed from meth because methamphetamine was cheaper and easier to acquire? Meet the Anarchists Making Their Own Medicine:

Even though they couldn’t legally buy the Naloxone precursors, Laufer realized that the opiates themselves are remarkably easy to obtain. After obtaining oxycontin on the street, collective members were able to perform a few chemical reactions to extract the necessary precursors from the drug and used them to make the Naloxone.

The organization (and presumably the instructions for making your own cheaper medicines): Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

[ related topics: Drugs Health Aviation - Helicopters ]

When a stranger decides to destroy your life. In which an Internet troll goes after a real estate agent..

[ related topics: Net Culture Real Estate ]

Twitter: Setting the record straight on shadow banning. Yes, the company recently changed how search results and similar get ranked, and people with lots of interaction with bogus and bot accounts moved down in the ranks.

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

It's full-on fire season in Northern California, the Carr Fire has destroyed a few hundred houses and been threatening Redding California for several days (and just killed three more people, along with the bulldozer operator and firefighter previously killed), the Ranch and River fires have turned into the Mendocino Fire Complex, threatening areas in Lake County and maybe northern Sonoma County, as well.

So the politicization of disaster is in high gear, and I think it's good to be reminded that Air tanker drops in wildfires are often just for show.

[ related topics: California Culture Pyrotechnics Real Estate ]

Boston Globe: Welcome to the quiet skies:

Federal air marshals have begun following ordinary US citizens not suspected of a crime or on any terrorist watch list and collecting extensive information about their movements and behavior under a new domestic surveillance program that is drawing criticism from within the agency.

Oddly, I'd thought that programs like this were running 15 years ago, though not at the "they deploy a squad of air marshalls on the next flight" level. Seems like this is probably not a great use of resources.

[ related topics: Movies Invention and Design Aviation Software Engineering Current Events Graphics Sports ]

Miami Herald: Biscayne Park Florida cop admits framing 2 black men as Florida town's false arrest scandal widens

The town reported clearing 29 of 30 burglary cases during Atesiano’s tenure as chief in 2013 and 2014. But now that seemingly stellar record — once touted by Atesiano to town leaders — has been shattered by the reality that at least 11 of those cases were based on false arrest reports, according to federal authorities.

Same story at MSN.com

[ related topics: History Current Events ]