Rexfeng

As concerns over environmental effects and water usage have grown, about a dozen local governments have voted to restrict or prohibit fracking in their jurisdictions.

Mike Merrill reimagines the game of Monopoly to better represent the modern financial system by adding the banker as a player, convertible notes, and Series A financing.

Each player starts with only $500. That's a nice bit of cash, but it's going to be expensive to build your capitalist empire. Baltic Avenue will cost you $80, States Avenue is $140, Atlantic is $260, and that leaves you just $20. Even if you're the first to land on Boardwalk you won't be able to afford the $400 price tag. Another $200 from "passing Go" is not going to last that long. You need more money.

At the start of the game the banker will offer each player a convertible note of $1000 at a 20% discount and 5% interest*. Armed with $1500 the player is now ready to set out on their titan of the universe adventure! (Of course players are not required to take the convertible note.)

That sounds fun? (via waxy)

Tags: economics   finance   games   Mike Merrill   Monopoly

The creator of the gaming sensation Flappy Bird now says he is bringing the game back. In an interview with CNBC, Dong Nguyen said the new version would be a multiplayer game that is "less addictive" than its predecessor. Nguyen famously pulled the game from app stores amid worries that the game's millions of fans were spending too much time playing the game.

Flappy Bird, which asks players to navigate a blob-like animal through a fiendishly challenging series of green pipes, became a sensation earlier this year. Its legend only grew when Nguyen removed it from app stores, leading to an army of clones that dominated the charts for weeks. On CNBC today, Nguyen said the original game has been downloaded more than 50 million times. The...

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Federico Viticci:

The 20 MB guide is compatible with iPads as well as Macs running iBooks on OS X Mavericks, and it takes advantage of the app with inline video playback, two-page page layouts, and built-in annotations (plus, of course, font size and color controls for reading settings).

It looks like Apple did a nice job in converting the guidelines to iBooks, and annotations appear to be especially useful for developers and designers learning the principles of the iOS 7 visual language.

Nice work from Apple.

The fact that George R.R. Martin writes the mammoth Game of Thrones novels on a DOS machine is no secret but it is still delightful to hear him explain why. The beloved fantasy author said on Conan that he enjoys the simplicity of WordStar 4.0 and dislikes modern autocorrect and spellcheckers. "If I wanted a capital, I would have typed a capital. I know how to work the shift key," he exclaims to the laughter of a sympathetic audience. Martin's no-nonsense setup might sound archaic but it is complemented by a second computer that he uses for email and web browsing. He's also not the first to attempt to keep it simple. Many have tried to make $1,000 computers perform similarly with minimalist text editors. However, few have expressed their...

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Being obsessive about food just got that little bit more interesting thanks to Fujitsu. Last year, the Japanese semiconductor company repurposed one of its factories to the production of lettuce, and this month it's begun selling the special produce for around ¥500 ($4.90) per 90 grams. That's a significant premium over conventionally grown greens, but then Fujitsu's lettuce is being cultivated in the same sterile clean room environment as is demanded for silicon chip manufacturing. That means total control over airborne contaminants, an array of sensors monitoring all aspects of production, and an overarching cloud-based system that calculates factors like the ideal harvesting time.

Starting off with a focus on low-potassium lettuce...

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Currently, between 365 million and 988 million birds die in the US each year because of collisions with buildings and houses, according to a report released in January. As a result, a number of American cities and states — such as San Francisco and Minnesota — have adopted building standards that promote bird safety, such as special lighting conditions. Unfortunately, many architects are reluctant to make changes if it means obstructing a client's view by using things like semi-transparent window decals. So, as The New York Times reports, an increasing number of glass companies and research labs have started to think about ways to stop these deadly collisions, without hindering our view.

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How's your furniture budget for 2014 looking? Obscenely well-funded? If that's the case, you might want to seriously consider this eye-catching Megalith Table. Inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's iconic science fiction series, the table's glass top appears to be supported by a series of domino-like monoliths frozen in a perpetual topple.

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"I'm not sure what filter to use on this delightfully stupid O.J. and strudel combo."

If any Londoners think that all-in-one #Dinnercam food-porn photo booth thing sounds awful, they should definitely also avoid something called Picture House, "the world's first pay-by-picture restaurant," which opens tomorrow in Soho. Brave customers who turn out for the pop-up, created by frozen food manufacturer Birds Eye, should plan to leave their trusty Diners Clubs card at home, because the only way to settle the bill is by Instagramming your meal, then hashtagging it #BirdsEyeInspirations.

The company's new line of frozen "chargrilled chicken and fish" products will no doubt be heavily featured on the imminently overexposed menu, but the push on the part of food manufacturers and fast-food restaurants like KFC to enlist customers as food barkers in general is only growing. Birds Eye apparently polled Britons and found that more than half "regularly" shoot food porn, though apparently not all of them consider themselves artistes. So while the world waits for a moment where increasingly sophisticated phone cameras will ensure everyone's taking wonderful photos, Birds Eye has thoughtfully brought on "food and lifestyle photographer and Instagrammer" Marte Marie Forsberg to offer guidance and to help diners artfully arrange their boxed chicken to get the best possible angle.

Food for the price of a photo in London restaurant stunt [London Evening Standard]

Read more posts by Clint Rainey

Filed Under: no filter, bird's eye, instagram

The nation's biggest telecommunications providers, including Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, are urging the FCC to ignore the growing outcry to reclassify and regulate the internet as a public utility. The cable companies instead want FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to stick to his original plan, one that would avoid that Title II reclassification of the internet and allow ISPs to charge other companies for increased speed on their networks — a move widely viewed as something that would tear down the fundamental principles of net neutrality.

"In recent days, we have witnessed a concerted publicity campaign by some advocacy groups seeking sweeping government regulation that conflates the need for an open Internet with the purported...

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Microsoft will start selling its new console, the Xbox One, without the Kinect sensor, eliminating one of the biggest criticisms of the new machine and allowing for a significantly lower cost of entry.

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Sword Art Online was easily one of the most popular anime of 2012. And while the West never got the first game, Sword Art Online: Infinity Moment, on the PSP, it will be getting the updated version of the game, Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment, for the Vita later this year.

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You're sitting at your computer. At work. Reading this post. Take a look around—what do you see? There's a whole lot of wiggle room where the word "office" is concerned, and, from May 17th to the 21st, we'd love for you to come on over and get connected at Gizmodo's Home of the Future .

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For years, scientists have feared the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet—a vast swath of ice that could unleash a slow but unstoppable 10-foot rise in sea levels if it melted. So here is today's terrible news: we now know the ice sheet is melting. And there's pretty much nothing we can do to about it.

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Michael Devine, one of four plaintiffs named in the class action against Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe, has asked the judge in the case to reject the settlement his own lawyers negotiated.

This superb Team Fortress version of the first Metal Gear Solid will probably make everyone a bit nostalgic really quickly. The talented animators of The Mystery Zone show that the spy from Team Fortress 2 would be an excellent replacement for Snake.

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US government spending data can be a pain to track down; while much of it is publicly accessible, it's scattered across many agencies that have their own ways of presenting information. Soon, though, you won't have hunt for it at all. The recently...

Forgo the automated apps for a month and see whether manually entering transactions sharpens your awareness of your budget, a financial planner suggests.

The boundaries of states are so engrained in our minds that it can be hard to look at the earth without dividing it into political regions. But there are many other ways of looking at our planet. For example, what would the map of the world look like if each country only controlled all the land closer to its capital city than any other country's capital? Some might argue that it'd produce "mathematically perfect" borders.

Data visualization freelancer Jason Davies has had fun exploring these ideas using mathematics. With algorithms and the right datasets, he splits the planet into regions that contain only the land nearest a certain point — say, a capital city. Maps made with this technique are called Voronoi diagrams, and he's made m...

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Tyler Vigen is collecting examples of data that correlate closely but are (probably) otherwise unrelated.

Remember kids, correlation != causation.

Tags: infoviz   Tyler Vigen

Lafayette's excellent brisket burger, not available at night.

Sure, there can be challenges to finding a properly civilized meal in this confused, post-gourmet era, and many of the common complaints about New York restaurants remain widespread because they're still true: The trendiest new restaurants in town tend to be tiny, overcrowded noise boxes designed mostly for the consumption of cocktails instead of a good dinner. You often have to stand in line to get a table, or a seat at the bar, and even if you don't, the online reservation systems can be arcane and confused. Navigating through the endless, precious tasting menus takes too much time, and the price of a decent dinner just keeps on going up and up and up. But don't despair. When it all gets to be a little overwhelming, do what your long-suffering critic does when the culinary grind gets to be too much. Pick up the telephone (preferably an ancient push-button landline), and make a reservation for lunch.

The upside to restaurants almost universally doing away with the traditional trappings of fine dining is that we are now living in the golden age of lunch. If you don't believe me, take a seat in the afternoon by one of the sunny windows at one of New York's normally riotous establishments, such as the Momofuku Ssäm Bar, or Balthazar, or Danny Bowien's Mission Cantina. At 1:30 on lazy weekday afternoon, there won't be the usual lines snaking out the door, and compared to the usual free-for-all riot at dinnertime, the sun-splashed room will be an oasis of calm. The waiter might even smile at you when he or she takes your order for a glass of Saint Emilion (instead of a bottle). You won't be pestered to order the latest mixologist concoction, or weirdly fruity house "mocktail," and your tab, when it arrives, is sure to be cheaper than the one you'd run up at dinner.

For a working restaurant critic, a leisurely meal in the middle of the day, at a good restaurant, always feels like busman's holiday, of course. But I would argue that in this comfort-obsessed, ramen-addled era, lunch — even more than dinner — is the great, hidden sweet spot. For years, now, my favorite dish at April Bloomfield's  tiny, riotous West Village gastropub, the Spotted Pig, has been the beautifully constructed sandwich Cubano ($18 with pulled pork, melted gruyère cheese, and assorted greens), served only at lunch. The great lapsed gourmet chef, Andrew Carmellini, serves wonderful lunches at his restaurants, and his latest downtown bistro, Lafayette, is no different. The grand room is a madhouse in the evenings, but if you go at lunchtime, you can enjoy non-dinner specialties like the chef's excellent brisket burger, and, unlike at dinner, it's actually possible to hear yourself think.

Yes, there are still great restaurants in the city — Le Bernardin, Per Se, Eleven Madison Park — ­where dinner is the optimum time to experience the considerable talents of the chef and staff. And yes, not everyone has a couple of hours on their hands in the middle of the day to loiter in restaurants, inhaling large amounts of quite-expensive food. But any Brooklyn chowhound will tell you that lunch at the larger, less personable new Franny's outlet, on Flatbush Avenue, is a much more peaceful, neighborly experience than dinner, even though the menus are exactly the same. My spies in the Torrisi empire assure me that many of the things I objected to at their flagship establishment, Carbone (the excessive menu, the forced circus atmosphere), are much less objectionable on a peaceful afternoon; although they also tell me that the veal parm still costs $55 at lunchtime, and if I dare to show my face at the door, the proprietors will probably still throw me out on the street.

But that's okay. For the devout lunchtime flâneur, there are a million options, these days, in the big city. The tiny new Soho restaurant Navy resembled a kind of Stygian rave bar when I dropped in not long ago on a Friday evening. But when I visited at lunch, the kitchen wasn't as harried or as slow, and the menu included an excellent avocado-and-pulled-chicken sandwich, so tasty that I was tempted to order it twice. Whenever people complain to me about the lines at David Chang's Momofuku restaurants, or the excellent Chinese restaurant, Han Dynasty, in the East Village, I tell them to go at lunch. Midday is my favorite time to visit Gotham Bar and Grill (for the $34 greenmarket lunch menu, and a glass of iced tea), and also my favorite time to visit Keith McNally's Minetta Tavern (for the French Dip). And if I happen to overeat, it's not the end of the world. There's always time for a leisurely digestif at the bar, followed by my usual, pre-dinner, afternoon nap.

Read more posts by Adam Platt

Filed Under: beating the crowds, balthazar, carbone, franny's, han dynasty, lafayette, mission cantina, momofuku ssam bar, navy, the spotted pig

It looks like the golden age of food trucks may have reached its end, as more and more vendors discover how hard it is to make money off the sidewalk lunch crowds. According to Crain's, only 500 out of 5,100 mobile food vending permits belong to actual trucks (as opposed to carts) and 400 of those are ice cream trucks. The number of "artisanal" food trucks selling things like barbecue and grilled cheese has hovered around 100 for several years now.

Some blame the prohibitive cost of getting the proper permits, while other barriers include weather and the fight for a prime location. Some businesses, like Rickshaw Dumpling Bar, have been forced to shutter everything (including the brick and mortar restaurants). Others, like Mexicue, are focusing on catering and full-blown restaurants. As Natasha Case, the owner of Coolhaus (which now has products in Whole Foods) puts it, "I would not recommend getting into the food-truck business unless you have a bigger plan."
· Food Trucks Stuck in Park [Crain's]
· Food Truck Permits Issued in NYC Flat Over Last Few Years [NYP]
· All Coverage of Food Trucks [~ENY~]
[Photo]

One sriracha, two sriracha.

While Eater reports a posse of Texas politicians are having a meeting at the embattled Irwindale, California, headquarters of sriracha-maker Huy Fong Foods today, company founder David Tran tells NPR he's not planning on leaving. Irwindale's city attorney says the city is still hopeful some kind of solution can be brokered regarding what neighbors say are foul and astringent hot sauce emissions coming from the factory, while Tran says his recent run-ins with the law have reminded him of his native Vietnam, from which he escaped 35 years ago. "Today, I feel almost the same. Even now, we live in [the] USA, and my feeling, the government, not a big difference," he says.

At the center of the controversy is Huy Fong's $40 million, 655,000-square-foot corporate headquarters, which Tran had built to his specifications in 2010. He calls the complex, where the peppers are processed, fermented into sauce, then bottled, his "loved one."

While Huy Fong has fielded offers from prospective hot-sauce hosts in Texas, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and probably every other state, Tran says his California roots are just too strong. That doesn't mean, however, the $80 million company isn't looking to expand: "[H]e might open another site, outside Southern California," NPR notes, adding that Tran wants to safeguard the business "in case climate change threatens his current supply." There's hope for you yet, Colorado.

Sriracha Maker Says Factory Will Remain In California [NPR]
Related: City of Irwindale Calls for Unexpected Truce With Sriracha Factory Owner

Read more posts by Hugh Merwin

Filed Under: burn sauce, david tran, huy fong foods, sriracha, srirachapocalypse

If the thought of putting anything green in your mouth leaves you gagging, this adorable and remarkably life-like lettuce umbrella might help slowly acclimate you to accepting vegetables into your life. And it probably goes without saying that it will keep you dry as well.

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Filed under: Car Buying, Sedan, China, Government/Legal, Tesla, Electric

Tesla buyers in in Shanghai, China, are getting even more of an incentive to choose its electric sedans. Each purchase of a Model S in the city will come with a free license plate.

That might not sound very important, but Shanghai operates under a government-organized auction system to distribute plates. Last year, they were selling for as much as $15,000, according to Car News China. The measure is a way to control the number of cars on the road, which contribute to the city's bad traffic and poor air quality.

Electric cars are exempt from the auctions and get a free license plate. However, that rule only covers Chinese-made electric cars. Obviously, Tesla doesn't build cars there (at least for now). But the Shanghai government will exempt 3,000 foreign electric cars per automaker to receive free plates, according to CNC. After they are gone, the company would have to go back and ask for more.

Tesla confirmed the plan to Autoblog and pointed out there was a small blurb about it in the automaker's Q1 2014 financial release: "Model S drivers in the city will be entitled to free license plates, thereby avoiding the usual public auction price of $10,000 to $15,000 per plate." It certainly seems like a great enticement to grab early buyers for the Model S there.

Chinese Tesla Model S buyers to get free license plate... a $15k value originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 12 May 2014 18:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Better, smaller than a $5 foot-long.

Good news for those who love tiny sandwiches stuffed with imported salumi: Spanish quick-service chain 100 Montaditos, which opened its first New York store last November in the old Pizza Box space on Bleecker Street in the West Village, is looking to add 29 more locations throughout the city. The next one opens this summer at 177 Ludlow Street. [Crain's, Related]

Read more posts by Hugh Merwin

Filed Under: expandwiches, 100 montaditos, empire building, greenwich village

Today, a federal court ruled that Google must pay Oracle for its use of the Java API in Android, setting a broad precedent that already has many legal scholars crying foul. If the ruling stands, it will give software companies copyright over their APIs, the interfaces that programs use to communicate with each other. The new standard is good news for Oracle, which holds the rights to Java and its widely used API, but potentially disastrous for software developers that want to build on top of APIs. If the APIs are no longer free to use, new services may be forced to start from scratch, making it astronomically more difficult to coordinate between programs.

Potentially disastrous for software developers

APIs are one of the most important...

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To Facebook, Poke was always "more of a joke" than anything else — so why did the company leave it in the App Store for more than a year after its troubled debut? We may never know, but today, Facebook finally put an end to Poke. If you check the App Store for Facebook's famed Snapchat clone, you won't find it. Facebook also took the opportunity, seemingly, to remove Camera, its photo uploading app. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the removals to The Verge, but provided no further comment.

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