Geppettofedora

Your Dragon Quest 8 has begun on iOS and Android, marking the first of the RPG series' mobile ports to reach the West. You can take the PS2 adventure on the go for $20 stateside, or £14/18 Euros across the ocean. The port promises "streamlined"...

No, it isn't the end of the world and frogs are not falling from the skies. That really is a real-life car in Mario Kart 8. As part of a surreal collaboration between Nintendo and Mercedes Benz, Japanese players are getting the Mercedes GLA as a DLC...

Ars Technica reports that the SourceForge-hosted web page for the TrueCrypt encryption program suddenly changed to carry a prominent security warning. It indicates that the program may "contain unfixed security issues" and "is not secure". A new version of TrueCrypt, 7.2, has been released, but with some major differences: "The SourceForge page, which was delivered to people trying to view truecrypt.org pages, contained a new version of the program that, according to this "diff" analysis [.diff.gz], appears to contain changes warning that the program isn't safe to use. Curiously, the new release also appeared to let users decrypt encrypted data but not create new volumes. Significantly, TrueCrypt version 7.2 was certified with the official TrueCrypt private signing key, suggesting that the page warning that TrueCrypt isn't safe wasn't a hoax posted by hackers who managed to gain unauthorized access. After all, someone with the ability to sign new TrueCrypt releases probably wouldn't squander that hack with a prank."

After flirting with it for months, I signed up for Plated last week. Seriously, every time I think "I am bored with planning meals and shopping for meals and why can't it all just happen for me?" (It's 2014! Where is my replicator?) I end up on a site like Plated's. And then, after fifteen minutes or so of idle crushing, I freak out about the cost and click away ... until the next time I was bored. And this cycle would probably have continued ad infinitum, except I got such a sweet discount I finally couldn't resist signing up.

WTF is Plated? Plated is a weekly meal subscription delivery service. They send you all the ingredients you need to prepare meals of your choosing. There are seven meal choices -- land, sea, and veggie -- and you can only purchase meals in multiples of two, so it might not work for a single household (unless you don't mind the same meal twice) but it's perfect for a couple household like ours. There are two of us, we need to eat, and sometimes I really resent buying ingredients for a recipe that feeds four-to-six people. Especially if it's a recipe I'm not sure will fly with The Husband.

Yes, I could halve or quarter the recipe, but I still can't buy just two tablespoons of red miso paste or a quarter cup of farro. So, even adjusting the recipe, I'm left with ingredients we may not like or ever have a need for again. I figured, with Plated, I get just the ingredients I need to make a recipe and, if we like that recipe, then I can go out and buy a jar of red miso paste or whathaveyou and make it again.

Unboxed

Once you have an account, Plated lets you create a "Taste Profile" where you can tell it about your own personal allergens, taste aversions, and dietary restrictions. For example, I've set mine to say I want anything that includes nuts or peanuts excluded from my weekly Plated suggestions. I can't say I saw much with nuts on last week's selection, anyway, but it's nice to have those plates automatically weeded out.

I had my first box delivered this past Friday because the long holiday weekend seemed the best time to try Plated out. We were scheduled for a few picnics, but there was no reason the plates couldn't be made for lunch -- especially as we tend not to eat before noon on the weekends, anyway.

The food was good. Surprisingly good. And, yes, some of it has to do with my fine cooking skills. But more of it has to do with the clarity of the recipe cards. If you are capable of following simple directions, then you can't really mess these recipes up. I admit the amount of seasoning was lacking in the cheesy quinoa stuffed tomatoes and baked onion rings, but seasoning levels are a very personal thing so I'm hardly surprised.

Cheddar burgers with (disappointing) baked onion rings

About the packaging ... everything came packed in a large cardboard box lined with an insulated bag. The meat and fish were stored in the bottom of the box, underneath two reusable freezer packs. All the other ingredients were bagged and placed on top of the freezer packs. My box was packed with three large bags of ingredients -- one for each variety of plate I'd ordered -- with a fewer smaller bags of single herbs packed between. The large bags were all GreenBags, those breathable storage bags that are supposed to keep (properly stored) produce fresher longer.

Seared salmon with tomato sherry vinaigrette

Initially, I was a little take aback by the amount of packaging, but when I got everything unwrapped I decided I'd probably not created more waste packaging than with a regular grocery shopping trip. Much of it can be repurposed, anyway. The tiny bottles used for holding vinegars and sauces will be perfect filled with salad dressings and packed with my work meals. I was careful opening the GreenBags and plan to reuse them on my own produce ... mostly to see if they really work.

Cheesy quinoa stuffed tomatoes

Scheduling the box for Friday worked really well and I think I'll schedule my next box for Friday, too. Weekends are the time we each worst, because we keep terrible hours and, frankly, treat meals like a dietary free-for-all with an excess of salt, sugar, and fat. (It's Saturday! Let's buy all the cake!). Knowing there are three meals ready to be cooked for brunch, lunch, or supper is a bit of a godsend.

Date(s): May 31, 2014

Address: Cove Park, State St., Wethersfield, CT 06109.

Details:

Fireworks are back in Wethersfield and kicking-off the summer.

The Goonies may have been good enough for Cyndi Lauper, but not for Sloth Team, a group of dedicated fans who have recreated Datasoft's ZX Spectrum adaptation of the 1985 film for modern PCs with new aesthetics and additional content. Unlike the...

Never Alone tells the tales passed down among Alaska Native storytellers in a mystical, frostbitten, platforming world, and it's on its way to PS4, Xbox One and PC in the fall, priced at $15. Never Alone puts players in the shoes of Nuna, a young...

"Deadly negligence by a professional driver is still okay in the eyes of the law here in San Francisco."

The truck driver who hit and killed Amelie Le Moullac on her bike at Folsom and Sixth Streets last August will face no charges from District Attorney George Gascón, despite surveillance video showing the driver at fault in the incident.

Gilberto Alcantar, the truck driver, is shown making an unsafe right turn in the bike lane in the video found by an SF Bicycle Coalition staffer. SFPD investigators initially claimed they could find no such video, and initially blamed Le Moullac for her own death. SFPD Chief Greg Suhr later apologized for the botched investigation, as well as the behavior of the sergeant who purposefully blocked a bike lane at a rally for safer streets in her honor. Suhr declared that the video evidence showed the fault was mainly with the driver, but DA Gascón says prosecutors can't make an adequate case to file charges. [...]

"After reviewing the evidence that we have, looking at the video of the incident, it's really hard for this grieving family to understand how a driver can do what he did without receiving even a slap on the wrist for a minor violation of the vehicle code," Liberty said.

"There is no issue about what happened. The video is clear, from what I understand -- he made an unlawful turn across the bike lane," said Shaana Rahman, an attorney who represents pedestrian and bicyclist victims in civil court. "It's not all the time that you get such a clear piece of evidence in cases, either civil or criminal. There aren't videos for every bike accident that happens -- and here we have one."

As frustrating as the lack of charges in this case may be, it's par for the course when it comes to holding drivers accountable for killing people biking and walking. As the Center for Investigative Reporting found last year, 60 percent of the 238 drivers who killed pedestrians in the Bay Area between 2007 and 2011 were found to be at fault or suspected of a crime but faced no criminal charges, and those who did usually only faced a slap on the wrist. Drivers tend not to be charged unless they were drunk or fled the scene.

Previously, previously, previously.

Gotta have a base case, man.

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Ars Technica is reporting that the appeals court has overturned US District Judge William Alsup's ruling that the Java API was not copyrightable. "'Because we conclude that the declaring code and the structure, sequence, and organization of the API packages are entitled to copyright protection, we reverse the district court’s copyrightability determination with instructions to reinstate the jury’s infringement finding as to the 37 Java packages,' the US Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit ruled [PDF] Friday."

I’ve done this several to many times in my life.

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Yesterday, America's first cat café opened in New York City. Cat lovers, you now have only three more day to sip coffee and eat pastries alongside adorable cats! Purina One teamed up with the North Shore Animal League, the country's largest no-kill shelter, to create this pop-up café that's the temporary home to rescue cats. While the concept of a cat café has been around for a while, with Asia and Europe leading the way, this is the first time one has opened in the United States. Two permanent cat cafés are scheduled to open in San Francisco this year.

The concept is simple. Visitors pay an hourly fee or cover charge to sit and lounge with cats. This one, on 168 Bowery, is free. Sixteen cats roam the premises and you're welcome to pick one up and snuggle with it. If you fall in love with a particular one, you can even adopt it! (Read about each individual cat, here. Looks like "Sushi" is featured in the photo, above.) To get your feline fix, stop by the store from 10a to 7p each day till April 27. If you'd like to learn a little something, you can listen to different cat experts talk about cat health and behavior. The store's capacity is limited to just 65 people, so you may have to wait in line.

Cat Café website
via [Gothamist, LA Times]
Photos via [Tod Seelie/Gothamist]

Date: April 17, 2014

Location: United Kingdom

Tags: Stones, Mountains, Nature, Hikers, National Park, Landmark, Landscape, History

This logic applies to almost everything.

• Think you aren’t working out enough?  MORE VIDEO GAMES
• Not enough fiber in your di—-MORE VIDEO GAMES
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Jack Halprin:

There's been a lot of misinformation recently about my decision to buy a seven-unit San Francisco home and evict all the other tenants, including a city school teacher, just so I can have the place to myself.

People are saying it's a bad thing. Somehow they're using Google to spread this lie. It had never before occurred to me that such a thing could happen.

So I need to clear the record: as a Google employee, I need the homes of seven school teachers to survive. It's just a fact of life, like the food chain, or the singularity. [...]

What I'm trying to say is that, in a free society, some people make better choices than others, and we reward those people with the homes of their vanquished enemies. Some people, for example, choose to be teachers, and spend their lives teaching other people's kids things that they can Google for free. Naturally, we pay them very little money -- so little that they're practically homeless already. Frankly, I'm surprised that anyone even notices when I evict someone making under $150,000 a year. Honestly, how can you tell?

Then there are other people, like me, who make good decisions, becoming important parts of the companies that sponsor TED talks. Naturally, we pay these people what they're worth. Why am I so highly compensated? Well, if I weren't at the office every day, doing the work I do, the government wouldn't be nearly as good at spying on you.

You're welcome.

Without my taking over their homes, how do you expect Google to file patent claims against Apple -- patent claims that are more important to the future of mankind than the work of a thousand homeless teachers? Without my ability to have an extra six bathrooms at my disposal, how could Google possibly lobby city government for the right of its employees to take your homes away?

Lowering the Bar:

Let me just break it down for you:

• The CIA tortured people;
• Even under to the DOJ's definition of "torture," it tortured people;
• It lied about how many people it tortured;
• It lied about how brutal the torture was;
• It "avoided or impeded" congressional oversight;
• It lied about whether the torture worked; and
• The torture didn't work.

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said she was absolutely outraged by this. And by "this," of course, she meant the leak. "If someone distributed any part of this classified report," she said, "they broke the law and should be prosecuted." (That goes double for the part about how none of the torturers have been prosecuted.)

Feinstein has also been outraged by recent revelations that the U.S. government has been spying on its own people. And by "people," of course, she meant "Dianne Feinstein."

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

So that's good news.

A person fully vaccinated against measles has contracted the disease and passed it on to others. The startling case study contradicts received wisdom about the vaccine and suggests that a recent swell of measles outbreaks in developed nations could mean more illnesses even among the vaccinated. [...]

Ultimately, she transmitted the measles to four other people, according to a recent report in Clinical Infectious Diseases that tracked symptoms in the 88 people with whom "Measles Mary" interacted while she was sick. Surprisingly, two of the secondary patients had been fully vaccinated. And although the other two had no record of receiving the vaccine, they both showed signs of previous measles exposure that should have conferred immunity.

While fans may never forgive EA for the disastrous launch of SimCity, those would-be city planners devoted to OS X will be happy to hear that the fan-favorite SimCity 4: Deluxe Edition is making a return to Apple hardware. This new version of...

This page has extensive information on CVE-2014-0160, an information disclosure vulnerability in OpenSSL otherwise known as the "heartbleed bug." "The Heartbleed bug allows anyone on the Internet to read the memory of the systems protected by the vulnerable versions of the OpenSSL software. This compromises the secret keys used to identify the service providers and to encrypt the traffic, the names and passwords of the users and the actual content. This allows attackers to eavesdrop communications, steal data directly from the services and users and to impersonate services and users." See also this OpenSSL advisory; version 1.0.1g contains the fix.

Brace yourselves -- it's time for Midweek Madness at Steam, and developers Telltale Games and Mossmouth are thrust into the spotlight for a limited-time round of steep discounts. The complete season of Telltale Games' The Wolf Among Us is available...

Indie developer SleepNinja will get a little help to bring Monsters Ate My Birthday Cake to Steam and mobile devices later this year, as it agreed to a publishing deal with Cartoon Network Games, the publisher confirmed to Joystiq. The developer...

#Dungeon, the roguelike that will build labyrinths by converting tweets into monster-filled chambers, will start its social media adventure on July 4 on PC, Mac and Android. The date was tweeted on the game's official Twitter account, paired with...

Mojang's sandbox build-'em-up Minecraft remains a popular favorite on the Xbox 360, surpassing 12 million units sold as of this month. "It is pretty amazing!" Mojang's Daniel Kaplan stated in response to the latest sales milestone. "I remember when...

Indie game Let There Be Life presents players with a challenge the exact opposite of what they may be used to; instead of killing or defeating an enemy, Let There Be Life wants you to focus on growing a beautiful tree while nurturing the flora...