This is really important to remember, especially when cowardly politicians who are using these horrific acts to further their own xenophobic and nativist goals spew their hate.
Good news, everyone! Remember all those times you desperately needed a LEGO spaceship fast enough to outrun a murderous Robot Santa Claus? Or what about those times you justed wanted to deliver a LEGO pizza in a stylish vehicle with a sweet “electric mucus” paint job? Well, you’re in luck because Nicola Stocchi, builder of the incredibly detailed Transformer Grimlock has created a beautifully rendered version of the Planet Express Ship from Futurama. Nicola built this beauty in LEGO Digital Designer with 5112 parts. Seriously, could this LEGO ship be any more spot on? At the risk of sounding negative, no.
if you go to the original youtube video linked above, literally all of the comments are from cheeto-fingered reddit users calling this guy an idiot for recording in portrait mode
Earlier this week, The Intercept evaluated the best instant messaging clients from the privacy standpoint. The list included Facebook's WhatsApp, Google's Allo, and Signal -- three apps that employ end-to-end encryption. One popular name that was missing from the list was Telegram. A report on Gizmodo sheds further light on the matter, adding that Telegram is riddled with a wide range of security issues, and "doesn't live up to its proclamations as a safe and secure messaging application." Citing many security experts, the report states:One major problem Telegram has is that it doesn't encrypt chats by default, something the FBI has advocated for. "There are many Telegram users who think they are communicating in an encrypted way, when they're not because they don't realize that they have to turn on an additional setting," Christopher Soghoian, Principal Technologist and Senior Policy Analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, told Gizmodo. "Telegram has delivered everything that the government wants. Would I prefer that they used a method of encryption that followed industry best practices like WhatsApp and Signal? Certainly. But, if it's not turned on by default, it doesn't matter."The other issue that security experts have taken a note of is that Telegram employs its own encryption, which according to them, "is widely considered to be a fatal flaw when developing encrypted messaging apps." The report adds:"They use the MTproto protocol which is effectively homegrown and I've seen no proper proofs of its security," Alan Woodward, professor at the University of Surrey told Gizmodo. Woodward criticized Telegram for their lack of transparency regarding their home cooked encryption protocol. "At present we don't know enough to know if it's secure or insecure. That's the trouble with security by obscurity. It's usual for cryptographers to reveal the algorithms completely, but here we are in the dark. Unless you have considerable experience, you shouldn't write your own crypto. No one really understands why they did that."The list goes on and on.
When the Department of Awesome Overindulgence goes out for an ice cream cone they go to Jersey Jack Gelato in Perth, Western Australia and order the Little Mostro. This not-so-little monster cone contains three big scoops of gelato and two mini cones, filled and topped with whatever tasty toppings your heart desires.
Jeremy Williams brings us a stunning LEGO rendition of a Martian rover, inspired by Mark Watney’s vehicle in the film The Martian. The levels of realistic greebly detail on this model is amazing, adding immensely to the sense of realism. Couple that with some excellent photography and you’ve got a cracking piece of work.
The model has a detailed interior and features twin-axle steering, independent suspension, and 2 (count ’em) Power Functions motors.
As soon as he posts a video (hint hint), then we’ll update this post to show the rover in its full glory. Fabulous stuff.
Enlarge / Little ol' headphone jack's causing a big ol' fuss. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)
As the rumors that the next iPhone will drop the 3.5mm headphone jack have intensified, I’ve been keeping tabs on the specific argument that Daring Fireball’s John Gruber made yesterday: that removing the headphone jack from the iPhone is the modern-day equivalent of removing the floppy drive from the iMac in the late '90s. It caused some pain at the time, but it was the way things were moving anyway, and in the grand scheme of things it was a smart thing to do.
The people on the “get rid of the headphone jack” side of the debate normally choose some version of this position as the justification that the jack is “old” and so getting rid of it represents “progress.” And the fact of the matter is that Apple has been pretty good at this kind of progress over the years, picking up new technologies like USB and SSDs and dropping aging ones like the DVD drive well before those technologies had gone (or ceased to be) mainstream.
But the headphone jack is not the floppy drive. It’s not the 30-pin connector. It’s not the DVD drive. It’s not even USB Type-C. It’s not, in other words, directly comparable to all those other times when Apple has been “right” to remove or change something, both because of the ubiquity of the headphone jack and the quality of the supposed replacements.
From the Now You See It YouTube channel: "What makes dialogue work? Let's explore the power of dialogue in film and take a look at the offensively named 'Dead Parent Test.'"
This week I was doing one final reread of Alice in Wonderland (a 1962 paperback version) and was struck by some archaic spelling:
"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone; "so I ca'n't take more." "You mean you ca'n't take less," said the Hatter: "it's very easy to take more than nothing."
Elsewhere the same style was applied to wo'n't and sha'n't.
Just out of curiosity I ran ca'n't through Google's Ngram viewer (result above), which shows that double-apostrophe'd contractions have not disappeared (though I can't tell whether the modern usages are simply new editions of older books).
A quick web search yielded these comments by Lewis Carroll in his Preface to Sylvie and Bruno Concluded:
Other critics have objected to certain innovations in spelling, such as “ca’n’t”, “wo’n’t”, “traveler”. In reply, I can only plead my firm conviction that the popular usage is wrong. As to “ca’n’t”, it will not be disputed that, in all other words ending in “n’t”, these letters are an abbreviation of “not”; and it is surely absurd to suppose that, in this solitary instance, “not” is represented by " ‘t”! In fact “can’t” is the proper abbreviation for “can it”, just as “is’t” is for “is it”. Again, in “wo’n’t”, the first apostrophe is needed, because the word “would” is here abridged into “wo”: but I hold it proper to spell “don’t” with only one apostrophe, because the word “do” is here complete.
Wordsmiths, grammar Nazis, copyeditors - any thoughts?
With World War II behind, the Netherlands was rapidly rebuilding its infrastructure, and the vast highway system required many gas stations. But resources were scarce, so the Dutch turned to stylish minimalism to make best use of what they had. Willem Marinus Dudok, a Dutch architect, was commissioned by Esso Netherlands to design a gas station. He came up with a modernist building which was fairly simple yet elegant. We previously featured LEGO builder Andrea Lattanzio’sEsso van and many of the interior decorations, but now he’s worked hard to replicate the entire building, and has managed to incorporate each and every detail of the functional and inexpensive design. Check out the original building to compare with Andrea’s interpretation.
Make sure you check out the rest of the photographs because the amazingly detailed and beautiful interior is fantastic. The workbench, sliding doors, cracks on the wall, the lamp, the decoration, ventilation and pretty much everything is well crafted!
Markus19840420‘s faithful recreation of Mulder’s office from The X-Files is adorned with details including numerous articles clipped on the walls and miscellaneous books and trophies. Even the pencils tacked on the ceiling made their way into the build.
When a handful of Westboro Baptist Church members showed up Saturday at the funeral of Orlando shooting victim Christopher Leinonen, counterprotesters donning large, white angel wings were there to shield mourners. Members of the Orlando Shakespeare Theater put together the wings as a symbolic but also literal screen between the WBC and funeral attendees. An Orlando Police tweet later proved the efforts to stop the WBC worked.
Kirill Mazurov, who has once blown our minds with an incredible ER-1250 bucket wheel excavator, keeps proving his talent for elaborate Technic models. The original John Deere 648L skidder is a heavy logging machine, and even in this scale (only half a meter long) it does look massive yet extremely smooth and stylish.
Believe it or not, there are 9 PF-motors inside this little beast. Together they are responsible for 8 various functions which makes this model as functional as the real one. And if you’re still not impressed, here’s a video of the skidder pulling trees and climbing some hills:
You can find many more awesome creations in Kirill’s photo stream. Don’t hesitate to check it out!
The world is urbanizing faster than ever, with over half of the planet’s population currently living in cities—more than any time in history. But when did this trend of “urbanization” start? It turns out its roots go back much farther than we thought.
