Habanerocouscous

Slurpees, the sugar-charged slushy drinks from 7-Eleven, aren't exactly the most hip of beverages. In fact, the mass-produced, uber popular drink probably goes against everything Portland even stands for.

mikejuk (1801200) writes "A recent paper, 'Intriguing properties of neural networks,' by Christian Szegedy, Wojciech Zaremba, Ilya Sutskever, Joan Bruna, Dumitru Erhan, Ian Goodfellow and Rob Fergus, a team that includes authors from Google's deep learning research project, outlines two pieces of news about the way neural networks behave that run counter to what we believed — and one of them is frankly astonishing. Every deep neural network has 'blind spots' in the sense that there are inputs that are very close to correctly classified examples that are misclassified. To quote the paper: 'For all the networks we studied, for each sample, we always manage to generate very close, visually indistinguishable, adversarial examples that are misclassified by the original network.' To be clear, the adversarial examples looked to a human like the original, but the network misclassified them. You can have two photos that look not only like a cat but the same cat, indeed the same photo, to a human, but the machine gets one right and the other wrong. What is even more shocking is that the adversarial examples seem to have some sort of universality. That is a large fraction were misclassified by different network architectures trained on the same data and by networks trained on a different data set. You might be thinking 'so what if a cat photo that is clearly a photo a cat is recognized as a dog?' If you change the situation just a little and ask what does it matter if a self-driving car that uses a deep neural network misclassifies a view of a pedestrian standing in front of the car as a clear road? There is also the philosophical question raised by these blind spots. If a deep neural network is biologically inspired we can ask the question, does the same result apply to biological networks? Put more bluntly, 'Does the human brain have similar built-in errors?' If it doesn't, how is it so different from the neural networks that are trying to mimic it?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

mdsolar (1045926) writes in with a story about how important buying the right kind of kitty litter can be. "In February, a 55-gallon drum of radioactive waste burst open inside America's only nuclear dump, in New Mexico. Now investigators believe the cause may have been a pet store purchase gone bad. 'It was the wrong kitty litter,' says James Conca, a geochemist in Richland, Wash., who has spent decades in the nuclear waste business. It turns out there's more to cat litter than you think. It can soak up urine, but it's just as good at absorbing radioactive material. 'It actually works well both in the home litter box as well as the radiochemistry laboratory,' says Conca, who is not directly involved in the current investigation. Cat litter has been used for years to dispose of nuclear waste. Dump it into a drum of sludge and it will stabilize volatile radioactive chemicals. The litter prevents it from reacting with the environment. And this is what contractors at Los Alamos National Laboratory were doing as they packed Cold War-era waste for shipment to the dump. But at some point, they decided to make a switch, from clay to organic. 'Now that might sound nice, you're trying to be green and all that, but the organic kitty litters are organic,' says Conca. Organic litter is made of plant material, which is full of chemical compounds that can react with the nuclear waste. 'They actually are just fuel, and so they're the wrong thing to add,' he says. Investigators now believe the litter and waste caused the drum to slowly heat up 'sort of like a slow burn charcoal briquette instead of an actual bomb.' After it arrived at the dump, it burst."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Sanchez's jersey from the Buttfumble Game sold for $820 at an auction. This is just an excuse to post a buttfumble GIF. [Shutdown Corner | NJ.com]

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A little more than a month after Nest announced it would halt the sale of its Protect smoke and CO alarm , the company has announced the official recall of every alarm sold thusfar. A report filed on the US Consumer Product Safety Commission website announced the recall.

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These guys decided to see if they can get a strike 120 feet away from the pins, all the way from the door of the main door of the bowling alley. It probably took a few dozen tries, but they finally succeeded, achieving what perhaps is the longest bowling strike ever.*

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There are many things about Carlos Gomez that are delightful , and this week's issue of Sports Illustrated contains an anecdote about Gomez that will make you want to be best friends with him.

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Quarterback J.T. Granato committed to Rice yesterday, his decision perhaps helped by a letter from the Owls' offensive coordinator to his cat, Kitty:

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Earlier this week the World Health Organisation ranked the globe's biggest drinking nations—but it didn't quite tell the entire story. This is what the data looks like if you ignore abstainers.

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With State Fairs only a few short months away, Kitchenette figured it was high time we delved into America's gastronomic Houses of Horror. Since nowhere is our collective cultural disregard for the laws of physics and good taste made clear more than with deep fried foods, it's only appropriate that we begin there.

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The favorite toe-shoe of vegan restaurant servers and 55-year-old men with ponytails has settled a class action lawsuit brought against it by what sounds like every person who ever wore its foot-condoms.

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Tattoo You

Roy Hibbert pooped the bed again last night, failing to score a single point or pull down a single rebound in 18 minutes against the Wizards. Watching Roy Hibbert play like shit for the last eight games has been the most depressing thing about these playoffs, but his struggles have also brought a great deal of joy to at least one man. That man is former Wizards star Gilbert Arenas.

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From Jack's Foodland in Eva, Al., comes this find, just a day after Jameis Winston was busted for shoplifting crab legs . In the future, all college football rivalries will be played out in the seafood aisles of the South.

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Every year, Cards Against Humanity gives away a limited edition "PAX Pack" to attendees at PAX East, making the giveaway as surprisingly awesome as they can. This year, they outdid themselves with an epic prank that involved created an elaborate, fake "extreme oatmeal" brand called "PWNMEAL" (complete with a long-running, perfectly obnoxious marketing campaign), producing three tons' worth of FDA-approved instant oatmeal packs, and hiding the PAX Packs inside these packets and waiting for the attendees to discover the truth.

Max Temkin's lavishly illustrated, gleeful recounting of the prank might just be the most triumphant story of a business doing what is most awesome because doing awesome things is awesome that you will read all year.

There were a few pieces of the oatmeal opening experience that became really important to us.

* First, the joke just wouldn’t have been as funny if it was some kind of dumb viral marketing; we wanted to really create confusion as to what exactly PWNMEAL was. My dream to create the illusion of an extreme oatmeal brand so convincingly that people would throw their packets out, and then go digging in the trash for them later when they realized that there were Cards Against Humanity cards inside.

* Second, we wanted to heighten the surprise of finding the cards in the oatmeal as much as possible, which meant we had to really sell the idea of an extreme gaming oatmeal. We didn’t want anyone to know that PWNMEAL was associated with Cards Against Humanity until they opened it up.

* Third, I wanted the cards to come loose in the oatmeal, covered in oat dust - I didn’t want them in a foil pack or any packaging. It was just funnier that way.

* Finally, we had to get these packets into the U.S. with FDA approval, and they had to fit into the convention center’s strict rules that ban giving away food. This was a big design challenge that we solved by shipping empty packets to the U.S. and then filling them with less than once ounce each of good old domestic U.S.A. oatmeal. In total, we ordered three tons of quick rolled oats and created about 150,000 packets of instant oatmeal.

PWNMEAL

Before you click play, allow me to set the stage: It's the top of the ninth in a one-run game, the bases are loaded, there are two outs, and the count is full. OK, now go ahead and start the video.

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Well, these are pretty awesome.

Europe, Yanko Tsvetkov

Astros prospect (and son of the former major leaguer) Delino DeShields, Jr. took a 90-mph fastball to the face last night during a game in Frisco, Texas and now his face looks like this:

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If you've ever tried to split your own firewood, you know it's kind of a pain in the tookus. Swinging the axe with enough force to drive the wedge into the wood and also split said wood (rather than just getting the axe head stuck) is not easy. That's why lumberjacks have big arms.

So Finnish inventor Heikki Kärnä redesigned the axe. Instead of working as a wedge, his axe is a lever. And it's sort of mesmerizing to watch.

It works because the Kärnä axe's center of gravity is to the side, rather than in the center, of the blade.

Upon hitting the top of the log and penetrating it slightly, the leading edge of the axe head begins to slow down. Where the axe blade widens sharply it stops the axe’s penetration. However, the mass of the axe head still has kinetic energy and the off line center of gravity forces it to rotate eccentrically down towards the wood. This rotational movement causes the leading edge, or sharp edge of the blade to turn in a lever action, forcing a split with all the force of the kinetic energy of the axe multiplied by the leverage of the axehead. The widening blade edge also has a benefit in that it helps to prevent the axe from penetrating into the wood and getting stuck there as is often the case with traditional axes.

The 1.9kg axe head has a significant amount of kinetic energy when it begins the rotational movement. While the centre of gravity of the head continues first to the right and then downwards the edge moves in a rotational direction to the left. This movement uses the rotational torque to split a log and push it away from the wood. In total the edge opens the wood by 8 cm. When the axe has rotated sideways it has used most of its energy and ends on top of the log on the in a sideways fashion. This safety feature ensures that the axe does not continue towards your legs and the axe remains totally in control. In addition, the axe holds the log steady on the chopping block ready for the next swing.

Also, the official company "Tale of the Vipukirves Axe" is sort of hilarious, in a Lake Wobegon kind of way.

Throughout his arduous work the axe often swung close to the hard working man's calves. The axe struck him more than once, but luckily the man was wearing protective overalls with his hems stiff into his rubber boots. After receiving a few mighty blows from the axe, he was forced to toss his boots into the trash. When the hard day's work was over, the man collected all the resinous branches into one pile and the trunks cut with a power saw in the other. They would wait to be cut into firewood.

“Darn it!” the man said in despair. “Making firewood is so much work, and it's dangerous too!”

He sat down on a stump, threw his gloves in the moss, wiped the sweat from his forehead and started cogitating. He grabbed the axe that the hardware salesman proclaimed to be the best on the market and began to examine the blade and the handle, turning the piece of metal in his sap-covered hands. Then it came to him.

”Eureka! I need to work on this!”

Video Link

Over the weekend, a story about Phil Ivey, the best poker player in the world, made its way around the Internet. He's being sued by the Borgata casino in federal court for cheating at a version of baccarat using a method known as "edge sorting." All told, Ivey took the casino for close to $10 million. Here's how he did it.

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CERN is home to some of the brightest minds in science and the origin of some of physics' biggest findings—but this Tumblr serves as a reminder that particle physics is a very lonely pursuit indeed.

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Why Are My Sneakers Fuzzy?

Following yesterday’s post on sneakers, I thought I’d share this great find by GazEtc. If you look at the bottom of your Chuck Taylor All Stars, you’ll notice that certain parts of the sole are fuzzy. The hairs are hard to notice at first, especially if you’ve already worn your shoes, ‘cause your soles will just look like they’ve collected gunk off the street. If you look closer, however, you’ll notice that little hairs are embedded into the rubber.  

Why? GazEtc investigated the patent for Chuck Taylors and found that they’re actually classified as house slippers with fabric bottoms, rather than sneakers with rubber soles. As he explains: 

Since my shoes were made in China, they were subject to an import tariff when they were shipped to the United States. And the import tariff is much lower for shoes with fuzzy fabric soles (like house slippers) than it is for shoes with rubber soles (like sneakers). According to the inventors, changing the shoe material can lower the duty from 37.5% down to just 3%. 

To benefit from a lower tariff, it isn’t necessary to cover the entire sole with fabric. According to the inventors, “a classification may be based on the type of material that is present on 50% or more of the bottom surface.” This explains why the “fabric” fuzz extends mostly around the edges of my shoes, where it can take up a lot of area without interfering too much with the traction of the bare-rubber centers.

So the invention embodied in my shoes is not a technological advancement. It actually seems to be a small step backward in quality. Instead, my shoes embody an advancement in “tariff engineering.” But perhaps, by putting up with a bit of fuzz, I can pay just a bit less for each new pair of sneakers.

You can see the original patent for Chuck Taylors here. The Smithsonian also has an interesting clip about how Marvel went to court to argue that the the X-Men weren’t human in order to get lower tariff rates.

Corey Johnson currently has the fourth-best bracket in America. The 20 best brackets will win $100,000 from Quicken Loans and Yahoo Sports, but Corey will not be among them. Corey's bracket didn't pick a champion . Where will Corey be watching tonight's championship game? "From a rope hanging from a tree," he tells me.

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Hanna B.

We know how it ends.

Did you guys see the finale? Of the show we're all so excited about? Where the victor is revealed? If you haven't, STOP READING RIGHT HERE because what follows is a HUGE SPOILER!

I'm serious stop reading. Stop reading right now if you haven't watched the whole series from beginning to end because I don't want you guys to blame me for ruining it. This is your last warning.

You know, I'm getting the sense that there are still people reading this who haven't watched the whole series, which means you're not only disrespecting me, you're disrespecting yourself. You're not allowing yourself to have the full experience. You're skipping to the end, and when you get there, you know what you're going to find? That it's not about the outcome, it's about the journey.

Okay, I think that did it. Just those of us who actually followed the whole show now. So let's get right to it:

CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT MAGILLA GORILLA WON THE WACKY RACES??????