Cooper Griggs
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The salmon send their best assassin. [x]
People Are Learning More About SeaWorld’s Practices. That’s Why Its Stock Is Crashing.
Cooper GriggsGood. These animals should NOT be in captivity.
Like a captive orca crashing down into the waters of its bathtub prison, shares of SeaWorld Entertainment are plunging today after the theme park operator delivered a dreadful earnings report. Although attendance was up slightly this quarter compared with a year ago, it has fallen 4.3 percent over the full first six months of the year. Revenue is also down about 5 percent over the first half of 2014; the company predicts that revenue will fall 6 to 7 percent by the time the year is out. As of writing, the stock has dropped about 30 percent, or $8 and change.
SeaWorld Entertainment runs 11 theme parks, not all of which make their money by training enormous aquatic predators to do tricks for sedentary Americans on family vacations. The company believes attendance has dropped overall partly for boring reasons like a late start to summer vacation in a few markets and new attractions at its competitors. But SeaWorld’s namesake parks have been dogged by controversy ever since the release of the documentary Blackfish, which spotlights their deeply troubling treatment of killer whales. And SeaWorld corporate clearly thinks the PR troubles are costing them. In its earnings release, the company says it’s pretty sure some visitors stayed away this quarter due to “media attention” surrounding a bill in California’s state Legislature that would ban orca shows at theme park. In other words, people are finally taking a hard look at SeaWorld's business, and it's making them seasick.
*Correction, Aug. 13, 2014: The photo caption in this post originally described the image incorrectly. The guests are looking at a dispaly of orca models, not live whales.
New Aquatic Wildlife Painted in Layers of Resin by Keng Lye
Cooper GriggsEverything except the frog looks amazing
With the exception of the repurposed containers, almost every aspect of these artworks by Singapore-based artist Keng Lye (previously) has been rendered in acrylic paint, carefully applied within layers of clear resin. A fish in a plastic bag, a tin can of tadpoles swirling under a frog on a lilypad, and even a completely convincing betta constructed from carved resin and painted with acrylic—each work a strange, lifelike amalgam of painting and sculpture. These are just a few of Lye’s work over the last year, you can see more over on Facebook.
Adam Freeland - Pale Blue Dot (Pulse Podcast 161)
Tracklist:
01. Speaking Minds - The Lost Dramatic Arp / Spoken word by Carl Sagan from 'Cosmos' audiobook
02. Speaking Minds - Amnesia (Clarian Remix)
03. Housemeister - Italodisco
04. Daniel Avery - Freefloating
05. Bob Moses - Far From The Tree (excerpt)
06. Kolme Kaveria - Fjord
07. Bobmo - Hotspot (Maelstrom remix)
08. Diamond Version - The Future of Memory
09. French Fries - Drums
10. TEED - Tapes And Memory (John Talabot remix)
11. Anaxander - My Aniseed Lollipop
12. Ana Sia - The Glass delusion
13. Boys Noize - Stop (Audions acid state mix)
14. Boddika - Heat
15. James Tee - The Last Request (Motsa remix vinyl mix)
16. Tin Man - Tip the Acid
17. Mario & Vidis - Changed feat. Ernesto (John Talabot Private Remix)
18. Bob Moses - Far Fom The Tree (excerpt )
Money Art by SingsInKitchensPreviously: Artist Adds Monsters to...
Edward Snowden Reveals NSA's MonsterMind Program
Cooper GriggsM.A.D. is switching over to the cyber front.
via Roumen.ganeff
In the high desert near Bluffdale, Utah, there lurks a creature made entirely of zeroes and ones. Called "MonsterMind", the project is an automated cyber weapon, perched atop the data flows into the National Security Agency's Mission Data Repository. According to recent revelations from former government contractor and NSA leaker Edward Snowden, Monstermind is both tremendously powerful and easily fooled. Here's the skinny on the biggest revelation from Wired's recent profile of Snowden. Author James Bamford writes:
Programs like this had existed for decades, but MonsterMind software would add a unique new capability: Instead of simply detecting and killing the malware at the point of entry, MonsterMind would automatically fire back, with no human involvement. That's a problem, Snowden says, because the initial attacks are often routed through computers in innocent third countries. “These attacks can be spoofed,” he says. “You could have someone sitting in China, for example, making it appear that one of these attacks is originating in Russia. And then we end up shooting back at a Russian hospital. What happens next?”
As described, MonsterMind is a brute force approach to covert cyber war embodied in one program. In order to function, it scans a huge amount of electronic communication, all passing through the 247 acre facility, and looks for attacks. That's the scary part. The dumb part is how it automatically decides where to strike back. Spoofing, as Snowden mentioned, is a relatively simple technique for hiding where an attack comes from. It's the online equivalent of throwing a pebble to distract the prison guard while the plucky protagonist runs away.
Bamford describes this attack as Strangelovian, in reference to the Stanley Kubrick film about nuclear war. In the film, the Soviets develop a nuclear deterrent system that automatically attacks America if Russia gets hit first. The deterrent fails in part because the Americans didn't know about it, and the film ends with a montage of nuclear explosions, as an accidental American first strike triggers the apocalypse. The automatic strike-back mechanism and obscurity of Monstermind resemble this device, but the stakes are at least an order of magnitude less severe than all-out nuclear war.
Cyber attacks at present are mostly the theft of private data or bank information, with the occasional rare instance of actual industrial sabotage breaking a machine. None of this makes an automated strike-back system great, but it's still a far cry from the world-ending threat of thermonuclear war.
Read this and other revelations, including one about a contractor router that broke Syria's internet, at Wired.
Snowden: The NSA's building Skynet to fight wars online
Cooper Griggs“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”
The true reason why Robin Williams died
Robin Williams is dead from suicide over depression. While tributes go on and people say how ironic it is that a ‘comedic genius’ struggled with depression, I’m going to tell you the truth.
-Robin Williams was married three times.
-The two divorces ruined his finances. He had to keep a steady job.
-After three marriages, it is clear that ‘love’ was a lie. That had to be part of the cause of the depression.
Why on earth did Robin Williams have to pay so high an alimony to his wives? It makes no sense.
What? You don’t believe me? Here you go.
Robin Williams wasn’t some ‘tragic depressive’ but someone who got his soul destroyed by the American divorce industry (and it is an industry). To you young men out there, do NOT marry.
DIY Glowing Inlaid Resin Shelves by Mat Brown
A few days ago, UK industrial designer and jeweler Mat Brown shared with the Reddit community his ingenious idea for a set of resin inlaid chestnut shelves. Starting with a cracked piece of chestnut wood he mixed standard resin with some mysterious glow-in-the-dark powder he bought on Ebay which he used to fill in the gaps. And voilà, instant glowing furniture with unknown side effects. Seriously though, they look amazing, and you can see his fully detailed tutorial over on his blog. Brown also makes lots of funky jewelry which he sells over on Etsy.
I don't want you to save the world
tumblr_lc3qsitXmJ1qf0aafo1_1280.jpg 1024×684 pixels
Collapse in Hebes Chasma on Mars
Cooper GriggsSo, it's basically a massive landslide. Right?
they say that over time couples start to dress alike….
they say that over time couples start to dress alike….
Scientists turn to hemp for cheap, fast-charging batteries
Tesla opens new Supercharger sites in London and Birmingham
New super-fast USB cables won't mind which way you plug them in
Cooper GriggsFINALLY!
girlwhowasonfire: deans-avenging-angel: girlwhowasonfire: Foun...
Cooper Griggsshared for the comments
Found a better use for the wine glasses.
That’s a martini glass.
I’m literally using it for milk and cookies does it look like I care about the finer points of debauchery.
A Softer World: 1140
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Paperback Writer vs. My Sharona
"My Paperback Sharona," a mashup of The Knack and The Beatles, by Go Home Productions. (via Laughing Squid)
Paul Kaptein’s Sculptures. Paul Kaptein creates wooden...
Cooper Griggsvia Randy Laue
Paul Kaptein’s Sculptures.
Paul Kaptein creates wooden sculptures and carvings into reproductions of humanity’s unnatural world to provoke a conversation on the interruptions and disarray that technology has placed upon our society. See more of the fantastic pieces below:
Paul Kaptein: Website
OM Audio's levitating Bluetooth speaker can be yours for $179
Cooper Griggstrippy
tumblr_lmymzuoNjo1qcfba3o1_500.gif (500×193)
Lyft claims Uber employees ordered at least 5,000 fake rides (update)
Cooper Griggsnow now, play nice
A Softer World: 1139
buy this comic as a print!
Or share on: facebookreddit
If you enjoy the comic, please consider supporting A Softer World on Patreon