Michael Akerman

Great letter in Wicked Local Cambridge (as in outside of Boston) begins:

Dear Neighbor,

Yesterday was a beautiful day, I think you will agree. I decided to take a short walk from my house on Hamilton Street to Dana Park, which I have been coming to almost daily since 1989, the year my son was born. As I often do, I brought my camera, sat on a bench for about 10 minutes, did one lap around the park and headed home.

I had barely gotten across the street when three police cars pulled up: I was told to stop, and swiftly surrounded by six policemen. I was “detained” there for approximately 20 minutes and questioned; another officer returned to the park to find out why you had called them.

My suspected crime, apparently, was having a camera in a public park, and allegedly taking pictures of children. As it turned out, I had taken no pictures that day. But I have been photographing in this neighborhood for 30 years, and have published a children’s book of poems and photographs, always with permission.

The policeman returned and wanted to see my “flip phone,” and then asked me if I knew how he knew I had a flip phone: I didn’t. He knew, he told me, because the woman who called the police had taken a picture of ME, sitting on the bench, and shown him the picture. They then took away my phone, scrolled through the few pictures that were on it.

They continued to hover around me asking questions. As it happened, I was standing near the house where my son now lives, and when my wife appeared, walking down the street after work, and saw me standing in front of his house with six policemen, she instantly feared something terrible had happened to our son. She was shaking, and I explained the situation.

Even after it all got sorted out, I’d be shaking, too. What if the guy DID have pictures of kids on his phone? Would that make him a menace? A pornographer? An object suitable for stoning?

Right now I’m in London, where I will finally get to meet Josie Appleton, founder of the Manifesto Club. Her organization fights, among other outrages, Britain’s obsession with the “danger” of photographing other people’s children. This obsession is so over the top that some schools will not allow parents to take pictures of their own kids in the school play or on sports day, because OTHER children will be in the background. As Appleton wrote in The Guardian:

The spread of photo bans is not really a response to child abusers stalking school sports days. Instead, it reflects the contamination of everyday adult-child relations – and the new assumption, as the children’s author Philip Pullman put it, that “the default position of one human being to another is predatory rather than kindness”. Any adult looking through the viewfinder at a child is viewed as potentially sinister and in need of regulation.

I think we all agree it’s good to protect children from danger. But not from a danger that does not exist. – L

OMG! Why does the government still allow men to have cameras?!

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I drank a large glass of brandy and then I didn’t care!

Your fave is problematic: Isabelle

zoomar:

Ponchos

Greek design firm NL Studio has created a desk that turns into a bed.

So says Donald Trump — and Fut Azteca:

By Pamela Toler (Regular Contributor)

Concerns that immigrants flooding across the border threaten the nation’s basic institutions. Construction of armed posts to defend the border. Passage of new, more restrictive immigration laws. Sound familiar? Welcome to Mexico in 1830.

The story began when Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821. At first the newly independent country welcomed settlers from the United States. The government signed contracts with immigration brokers, called empresarios, who agreed to settle a set number of immigrants on a set piece of property in a set amount of time. In exchange for the right to buy land, settlers agreed to obey Mexican law, become Mexican citizens, and convert to Catholicism. At the same time, the US Congress passed a new land act that made emigration to Mexico even more appealing. Public land in the US cost $1.25/acre*, for a minimum of eighty acres and could no longer be bought on credit. Public land in Mexico cost 12 1/2¢/acre and credit terms were generous. Not a hard choice for anyone who was cash-poor and land hungry.

Some empresarios brought in groups of settlers from France or Germany. More, including Stephen Austin,** brought in settlers from the southern United States. Most new colonists settled in new communities east of modern San Antonia. By the mid-1830s, Anglo settlers outnumbered native Tejanos by as many as 10 to 1 in some parts of Texas. These settlers brought the culture of the American South with them, including slaves and slavery.*** In addition, many Anglo settlers traded (illegally) with Louisiana rather than with Mexico.

Concerned about growing American economic and cultural influence in the region, the Mexican government passed a law banning immigration into Texas from the United States on April 6, 1830. They also assessed heavy customs duties on all US goods, prohibited the importation of slaves, built new forts in the border region and opened customs houses to patrol the border for illegal trade.

The law didn’t have the intended affect. Instead of re-gaining control over Texas, Anglo colonists and the Mexican government were in constant conflict. The law was repealed in 1833, too late to staunch the wound. The first shots in what would become the Texas War of Independence were fired on October 2, 1835.

*$31.44 in today’s currency. Still a bargain.
** Hence Austin, Texas. (I don’t know about you, but I’m always curious as to how a town got its name.)
***Outlawed in Mexico is 1829–so much for obeying the laws.

Rotsky - amazing creature!

Some of these conjectures seem shockingly plausible, fitting perfectly within the events of the seven-book series and providing answers where Rowling’s original text has not; others are, to be blunt, totally bonkers—but fun all the same.

There's a surprisingly elaborate history behind the “Winners Don’t Use Drugs” slogan that would appear on arcade games in the '80s. 

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This article about a vomiting machine (which has a very important purpose) contains this fantastic sentence: “Aerosolized vomit-pudding sprays out of its mouth, which stretches open in permanent retching position.” How can you not read about that?

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Who knew plants on pink could be a whole aesthetic? 

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Intriguing Headline of the Day: What Magicians, Con-Artists, and Scammers Can Teach Us About Humility and Humanity.

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Nature is beautiful and wonderful, but sometimes it’s just downright weird and scary. Take these bizarre natural disasters, for example.

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If you’re a professional treasure hunter, you really need to get to Florida because this team keeps finding gold coins.

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Ever wonder what goes on during stock photo shoots? The New Yorker sure does. 

According to datamining on HearthPwn, there are some new test strings in the Hearthstone code that suggest a co-op mode may be in the works. Though you have to take datamining with a grain of salt  — the info we find may be something Blizzard has tried out but doesn’t intend to put in the actual game, or doesn’t intend to put in any time soon — the idea of co-op Hearthstone with multiple players teaming up to defeat a single boss is a fun one.

Here’s exactly what HearthPwn dug up:

VO_HRW_TEST_00 – I will cleanse you both of the Curse of Flesh!
VO_HRW_TEST_01 – Well done! You’ve defeated the boss together.\n\nBoth players win!
VO_HRW_TEST_02 – Defeat Gearmaster Mechazod together to win!
VO_HRW_TEST_ABILITY_03 – Damaging all other characters.
VO_HRW_TEST_ABILITY_05 – Dealing damage to both heroes.

At this stage, it’s impossible to say what kind of game mode this would fit into — all we know about it is this handful of test strings. Will it be a mode in and of itself, an addition to a new Hearthstone Adventure, a new style of Tavern Brawl, or all of the above? With datamined info, any or none of these could be true. Still, let’s enjoy the speculation while we can.

The post Is a new co-op mode coming to Hearthstone? appeared first on Blizzard Watch.

Father - Daughter - Selling her virtue

Her name is Deep Blue. She's estimated to be 20 feet long, 5,000 pounds, 50 years old and, in the video above, she's likely pregnant. The footage was taken off the coast of Guadalupe Island by shark researcher Mauricio Hoyos Padilla in 2013 and has only just been shared on his Facebook page earlier this week under the title "Deep Blue (The biggest shark ever filmed) second part."

While your first thought upon viewing this clip might be "Ahhh!" or "Get back in the cage, anonymous diver," Padilla says he had a different reaction. Writing in a SlideShare post, Padilla says, "When I saw Deep Blue for the first time, there was just one thought in my mind: Hope. A shark of that size is at least 50 years old and that tells me protection and conservation efforts are really working. Deep Blue has been spared from longlines and the inherent dangers of being in the wild, and somehow she has found her way in the vast ocean."

[h/t ABC News]

Unsurprisingly, the key to brewing a better cup of coffee at home is the way you treat your beans. Because you only get out what you keep in.

Look, I’ve got 20 years of coffee drinking on the guy who originally wrote this article. And we know a lot more about coffee today than we did a few decades ago, so it only seems right to update, repair, and renovate the groundwork for a better cup of coffee.

PURCHASING

• Buy whole beans in small pouches — only what you’ll use in a week. Coffee beans are like wine, once the air is in, time starts ticking away. Honestly, even if you keep the bag’s factory seal intact and stash it away from heat, peak quality will begin to dissipate after three weeks.
• Neither the refrigerator nor the freezer is an acceptable option for storing beans. Condensation is even worse for coffee beans than air contact.
• Beware beans in open bins, where light, air, and moisture can degrade quality.
• Depending on who you ask, there are between three and 25 roast styles. Some roasters only deal in light, medium, and dark, while others might go light, medium, medium-dark, then dark. If you go really crazy, you could say light, cinnamon, New England, American, medium or “city,” full city, French, Italian, and Spanish, which basically means burned. If you want to taste the bean, I say go light to medium. And remember, caffeine levels drop as the roast level darkens.

GRINDING

• Grind immediately before brewing. Think of coffee as you would nutmeg or black pepper. It’s technically a spice full of essential oils and other volatile substances that start dissipating the moment you crack the safe, so to speak.  If you must grind ahead, consider air-proof containment such as a heavy, zip-top freezer bag with the air sucked out.
• If you really care about good coffee, invest in a burr grinder. Blade grinders are handy for spices, but suck at grinding coffee. With a two-part mill, burr grinders produce a uniform grind and most models allow you to adjust the settings, so coarse grinds for a French press are as easy to fabricate as a fine grind for espresso. The downside: Be prepared to spend $100 to $200, but also be prepared for your coffee to taste that much better.
• If you don’t have a coffee grinder or don’t want to mess with grinding, buy small batches of beans from a neighborhood roaster or shop, have them do the grinding right then and there, transfer to a heavy, zip-top freezer bag as mentioned above, and use the coffee within the week.

BREWING

• The golden ratio for coffee brewing: 1 gram of coffee to 14 grams of water. Yes, you should weigh your beans, and yes, metric is better. My morning equation: 28.5 grams of coffee to 400 grams of water.
• Use enough coffee. It’s a popular misconception that brewing with less coffee will give you a “lighter” brew. This is not so. Brewing with less coffee most often results in over-extraction of the bean, which leads to bitterness. If you like weak coffee, brew full-strength, then cut it in the cup with hot water.
• Use filtered water. Your coffee will never be better than your water. Here’s the bottom line: If your water tastes good from the tap, make your coffee with it. If it doesn’t, use filtered water.
• Heat kills. The longer the pot sits on that heat element, the faster the subtle flavor compounds in your brew go belly up. I used to brew into a thermos, and I still do if I’m taking Joe on the go, but these days, I tend to brew into a robust, flameproof carafe that can be parked directly over low heat as needed, but coffee doesn’t usually hang around my house that long.

The post Coffee Owner’s Manual: Reloaded appeared first on Alton Brown.

New ways to compose, attach and use your watch make Hangouts simpler than ever

Here's what’s new:

With Hangouts, we want to help you stay in the moment, no matter what device you’re using or how you’re getting your voice across, from texting to talking to video.

Offices are too cold for everyone, and that’s wasting precious energy.