Cooper Griggs

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Rumor: Former FBI Agent K. Dee McCown published an 'epic' open letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.

nevver:

House by the Lake

Can you create a planetary system that lasts for 500 years?

Even Woody Allen is getting into the streaming content game. The prolific writer and director has scored a deal with Amazon Studios to produce his first-ever television series. Unfortunately, there's no word on a title, casting, or even what the heck...

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Rumor: Action star Liam Neeson is a gun control advocate.

Rumor: Video shows a pastor bragging about punching a child for "not taking the Lord serious."

In the winter time, whenever I pulled a large flat part of off the print bed of my RepRap Prusa Mendel, I would notice a great deal of static electricity. One day the thought occurred to me that I could 3D print a Wimshurst Influence Machine like the one I designed and built for an […]

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As has been widely reported over the past few days, we’ve released data for 2013-2014 showing camera ownership trends among Flickr members. With this blog post, we give you more detail about the data and let you parse the minutia.

This analysis goes from the period of January 2013 to mid-December 2014. We estimate camera ownership per-week by only counting a camera once per-account, per-week, to compensate for community members uploading different quantities of photos.

This analysis offers an estimate of camera ownership by brand and cameras all together, and then looks in detail at mobile cameras, mirrorless and DSLR cameras.

Brands

Overall, Nikon and Canon steadily held on to their share of cameras on Flickr. What changed was that the big two smartphone camera manufacturers, Apple and Samsung, which moved up the chart.

Mid-2014 is where most of the significant changes happened. Kodak dropped from 1.5 percent to off the chart entirely, but the biggest change was in the cameras using the Android operating system. In the last 6 months of 2014, Samsung saw growth from 6 percent weekly use, to nearly 15 percent, and both LG and Motorola came on to the scene at nearly 2 percent each, close to their older peer, HTC, which held steady at around 2.5 percent.

Cameras Overall

When comparing all the cameras on Flickr, the iPhone 5S, 5, 4S and 4 have consistently been the most popular on Flickr over the past two years. While Nikon and Canon remain very popular, they offer a huge range of individual cameras and the overall popularity of individual models likely is lost in the diversity.

Outside of smartphones, the next most popular cameras are all classic DSLR’s. The full-frame Canon 5D MkII is the next most popular camera outside of smartphones in 2013, but took second place to the Canon 600D (T3i in some locales). Entry to mid-level DSLRS round out the rest of the top 10 (all APS-C) with the exception of the Canon 5D MkIII which makes an appearance at the bottom of the top 10 for 2014.

Mobile Cameras

For all of 2013 and well into 2014, Apple made up 60% of the mobile cameras owned on Flickr, with, as mentioned earlier, the iPhone 5 taking the biggest share. However, mid-2014 saw a dramatic change, with Android camera phones gaining a 10-15% share of camera usage. Samsung in particular grew strongly, the Galaxy S3 and S4 contributing significantly to the brand’s popularity.

Nokia started out at 8% weekly of the cameraphone share but has been steadily declining, at a bit below 3% weekly at the end of 2014.

Mirrorless Cameras

For both 2013 and 2014, the most popular mirrorless camera by far was the Micro 4/3 Olympus E-M5, and by 2014 it was one of two Micro 4/3 format mirrorless cameras in the top 10. The high-end, full-frame Sony A7 took the second spot, followed closely by APS-C contenders Sony NEX-6 and Fujifilm X-E1.

At the start of 2013, there were four big players contributing to mirrorless cameras on Flickr: Sony, at over 35 percent weekly of mirrorless cameras, Olympus at nearly 30 percent weekly, Panasonic at 25 percent weekly, and Fujifilm under 10 percent weekly. Both Panasonic and Olympus started out with a huge variety of cameras and ended 2014 with a smaller share (20 percent weekly for Panasonic and 25 percent weekly for Olympus) and a much smaller variety of cameras. Sony closed out 2014 with a much bigger variety of cameras and a 40 percent weekly share of mirrorless cameras used, while Fujifilm saw a similar growth with models and nearly a 20 percent weekly share of the cameras owned.

DSLRs

Within DSLR’s Canon, Nikon and Sony were the top 3 contenders, holding steady at 55% weekly, 40% weekly and a bit less than 5% weekly (respectively) of the DLSR cameras owned on Flickr. The Canon 7D topped was first in 2013 and bumped to second by the Canon 600D in 2014. In 2014 the Nikon D7000 and Canon 60D jockeyed for the next two spots, with the Canon 5D Mark III being the most popular full-frame camera. Not just for professionals, there is a healthy selection of entry-level DSLR’s in the top 10 for both years, Nikon being more popular in this category.

Clarifications

This article has been updated to correct an error where certain camera types were under-counted.

Apple took a big step forward when it expanded the scope of its two-step authentication last year, since it's now relatively hard to peek at someone's sensitive content unless you also have their device. However, this extra security measure still isn...

(photo via polakaco)

There’s an innate relationship between children and the animal kingdom. Our children sing songs about animals, the have toy animals, they have books about animals and they dream about animals. Capturing this unique connection is Indonesian artist Elicia Edijanto, who depicts small, vulnerable children alongside creatures of the wild like elephants, wolves and bears. Created in stark black and white imagery, and using only watercolors, Edijanto creates dreamlike-scenes that are both tranquil and contemplative. You can see more of her work on Behance and you can follow her on Instagram. (via Fubiz)

Conçu par les architectes et designers Wendell Burnette, Marwan Al-Sayed et Rick Joy, le magnifique hôtel Amangiri se situe en plein désert de la région qu’on appelle les « 4 Corners » : là où l’Utah, le Colorado, New Mexico et l’Arizona se rejoignent, exactement à 5 heures de New York en avion. Le coût des chambres commence à partir de 1100 $.

hodad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMgOmYw1wJo

CNN became the first round-the-clock news channel in 1980, during the Cold War era. Media mogul Ted Turner, founder of CNN, understood well the threat of nuclear war during that time. While many television stations ended their broadcast day by playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” as a sign-off, Turner knew he only wanted CNN to sign off once: at the end of the world. He had an eerie and somber—yet patriotic—video made for CNN to broadcast on such an occassion, but with a band playing the song “Nearer, My God, to Thee” instead of the national anthem.

In a 1988 interview with The New Yorker, Turner spoke about how the tape was made.

Normally, when a TV station begins & ends the broadcast day, it signs on & off by playing the National Anthem. But with CNN–a 24-hour-a day channel–we would only sign off once & I knew what that would mean. So we got the combined Armed Forces marching bands together–the Army, Navy, Marine & Air Force bands–& took them out to the old CNN headquarters & we had them practice the National Anthem for a videotaping. Then, as things cranked up, I asked if they’d play ‘Nearer My God, to Thee’ to put on videotape just in case the world ever came to an end. That would be the last thing CNN played before we–before we signed off. And, I’ll tell you, those guys in the military bands knew what I was up to.

I keep this tape around because when the world ends it’ll be over before we can say what we wanted to say. Before we can leave any final messages.

Michael Ballaban, a former intern for CNN, shared a view of the warning on CNN’s archives for the video that reads, “HFR [hold for release] till the end of the world confirmed.”

image via Jalopnik

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Original Source

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Video: Chihuahua Teases Puppy With Chew Treat

From The Huffington Post:

A man in Iran has been sentenced to death for “insulting the prophet of Islam” on Facebook.

Soheil Arabi, a 30-year-old blogger, was convicted in August after admitting posting “offensive” material on eight Facebook pages, under different names, including one titled ‘the generation that no longer wants to be the burnt generation’.

Arabi admitted posting the material but said that he wrote it “in poor psychological condition” according to the International Campaign for Human Rights In Iran.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said that Arabi now faces “imminent execution” by hanging after the Supreme Court upheld the sentence.

And since we’re on the subject of blasphemy: Greek blogger sentenced to 10-month prison for insulting religion:

An Athens court sentenced blogger Filippos Loizos to ten months prison suspended for 3 years, after found him guilty of “insulting religion”. The blogger was known as Elder Pastitsios, who was making fun of the almost mythical monk Elder Paisios.

Philippos Loizos, 27, was arrested in September 2012 on charges of “malicious blasphemy and insulting religion” through Facebook. The arrest came “after thousands of e-complains from residents of different countries of the world”, so the police press release. The 27-year-old had created a page on Facebook named “Geron Pastitsios” (Elder Pastitsios), an mock name for Greek Athos monk, Elder Paisios (1924-1994), famous about his prophecies on Greece, the Greek nation and the Orthodox Christianity.

starting


and me at level 5

shared interests

when i met him he was already years into gaming. i didn’t have an opinion one way or the other about this. it’d been the same if he was into soccer, fantasy baseball, or chess. hobbies are hobbies, and i’m glad folks have ‘em.

but now that he works in this field, and he’s in it for the long haul, i wanted to understand this better. i wanted to know what the hell a “level 85 paladin” was. and what exactly is the big deal about “for the horde!”. i wanted to understand his world.

so on friday i created my first wow character and i played the game.

he had me play on his computer (best equipped for this), while he played on my laptop. “he played” means he literally danced around my level 1 orc shaman with glee, as i learned the keyboard and navigated my first few quests.

and… i truly enjoyed myself.

so now i’m level 5. i have fancy britches and a vest that has +3 on attacks over what i started with. i’ve killed my fair share of scorpions and woken the lazy peons. i’m well on my way to actually doing something beyond the training run in this game, and i’m liking it.

he embraced travel, and art, and has supported my interests. now i’m taking a step into his world, with him by my side, and finding we have more shared interests that one would have thought.

not sayin’ i’m going to be jonesing to join a guild anytime soon or raid every weekend, but i can say that i’m looking forward to him getting home so i can login via his computer to level up and get even better britches.

From the hundreds of millions of photos uploaded on Flick in 2014, these 25 bubbled to the top.

Though beauty is in the eye of the beholder, we’ve compiled this list based on a number of engagement and community factors. The photos were scored by looking at a combination of social and interactive elements, including how often the photo had been faved and viewed, among others.

There were several community members who appeared in the list several times; we picked their top-scoring image. We saw three of the Flickr 20under20 winners represented in the list. And it was perhaps little surprise the the European Space Agency’s Rosetta Philae photo made the cut. We also included four honorable mentions because we loved them so much.

Congratulations to these amazing photographers!

Uploaded on 1/10/2014 by aleshurik

Uploaded on 2/17/2014 by PeteHuu

Uploaded on 4/13/2014 by elmofoto

Uploaded on 2/26/2014 by rosiehardy

Uploaded on 4/24/2014 by LJ.

Uploaded on 8/12/2014 by Alexandr Tikki

Uploaded on 5/19/2014 by yard2380

Uploaded on 1/21/2014 by laurawilliams

Uploaded on 3/11/2014 by humansofny

Uploaded on 5/1/2014 by SoulRiser

Uploaded on 8/1/2014 by http://www.trentonmichael.com

Uploaded on 11/11/2014 by europeanspaceagency

Uploaded on 3/11/2014 by WideEyedIlluminations

Uploaded on 1/1/2014 by Deltalex.

Uploaded on 3/22/2014 by Masa

Uploaded on 4/28/2014 by Whitney Justesen

Uploaded on 6/4/2014 by David Uzochukwu

Uploaded on 3/20/2014 by Rosie Anne

Uploaded on 1/7/2014 by Rob Macklin

Uploaded on 3/24/2014 by davideluciano

Uploaded on 1/19/2014 by Adrian Sommeling

Uploaded on 1/14/2014 by stevoarnold

Uploaded on 4/24/2014 by rastaschas

Uploaded on 6/7/2014 by Johnson Barros

Uploaded on 8/8/2014 by alexcurrie

Uploaded on 3/31/2014 by j man.

Uploaded on 1/14/2014 by Avanaut

Uploaded on 6/14/2014 by The Change Is Me.

Uploaded on 2/27/2014 by oprisco

Well, this is more than a little depressing: The politician who tried reducing NASA funding (and successfully shut it down for over two weeks) is now in charge of the senate subcommittee that effectively controls NASA. More than that, one of the most...

“People’s memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive.”

- Haruki Murakami, writer (b. 12 Jan 1949)

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By all accounts, I shouldn't have hit the dummy target 300 yards downrange because everything was working against me. For starters, the Las Vegas desert was windy as hell. Factor in that I was shaking thanks to nerves, cold temperatures and the press...

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Converting unfamiliar speech to text in Google Translate is currently an awkward affair: you have to start a recording and wait until a moment after you're done to find out what the other person said. That's not exactly living up to the dream of a St...