nerdglazeblog:

0_0   The internet. It’s a scary vortex.

“Michael from Muckrock sez, “Want to know what guns your neighbor has? Generally public record. What guns your government has? That’s top secret. A recent public records request for the armaments of a local police department in Somerville, MA., was met with a surprising response: Releasing a list of guns the department held ‘is likely to jeopardize public safety,’ and so is exempt from public disclosure. Maybe they’re arming up for an insurrection?”

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Cops in Somerville, MA: “It would endanger the public to tell you what guns we have” - Boing Boing

meanwhile, in Somerville

Reposted via Gender Anarchy.

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First attempt at gluten-free bread in the bread machine is pretty damn good! Much better than the 7$ a loaf irradiated GF bread at the local supermarket. Used this recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/3-variations-of-a-gluten-free-bread-recipe-bread-machine-308592

What do you call it when a woman expresses an idea and is shot down, only to have a man express essentially the same idea and have it broadly embraced?

It’s an experience many women I know have had repeatedly. In my professional life, especially, it’s been the cause of much teeth gnashing. (Less assertive men know the experience as well.) “It happens with jokes too,” said a friend of mine. “You give a witty response; nobody hears it. Two minutes later a man/more glamorous person cracks the same response, gets a big laugh from all present. Should we just talk louder?”

I don’t know if talking louder helps, because of course then we’re dismissed as “shrill” or some other variety of “straw-feminist” cliché.

So there’s got to be a word for it—but what? My pal, writer Maura McHugh, suggested “Manpproval? Manappropriation?” While I like that analogue to mansplaining, I think we need something more metaphorical that gets at the unfairness we instantly feel at having our thunder stolen. I’m trying to think of a film that captures this in as instantly recognizable a way as “gaslighting” (from Gaslight), but I can’t think of the right single-word title.

A couple of male friends had further suggestions: Classics scholar Dan Curley suggested “manapropism,” while media blogger Todd Mason suggested “manslation” or “dicktation.”

What do you think? Have you experienced this phenomenon? What do you call it?

Architect Moon Hoon recently designed the Panorama House (scroll down), in Chungcheongbuk-do, South Korea. One of the most unique features incorporated into the home is a wooden slide built directly into a library which also functions as a stair-stepped home theater seating area. Via the architect:

The basic request of upper and lower spatial organization and the shape of the site promted a long and tin house with fluctuating facade which would allow for more differentiated view. The key was coming up with a multi-functional space which is a large staircase, bookshelves, casual reading space, home cinema, slide and many more. The client was very pleased with the design, and the initial design was accepted and finalized almost instantly, only with minor adjustments. The kitchen and dining space is another important space where family gathers to bond. The TV was pushed away to a smaller living room. The attic is where the best view is possible, it is used as a play room for younger kids. The multi-use stair and slide space brings much active energy to the house, not only children, but also grown ups love the slide staircase. An action filled playful house for all ages.

See many more interior and exterior photos over on Contemporist. (via soft shock)

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@ZachDriftwood’s #Petheadz

Some say pets look like their owners, but one Canadian photographer has taken it to a new and creative extreme. In his series, #petheadz, Zachary Rose (@zachdriftwood) takes DSLR portraits of people’s pets and mashes them up with portraits of their owners by cleverly holding the camera in the foreground.

The series started as an exercise in creativity with his two roommates but quickly caught on. To date, Zach has taken 18 #petheadz portraits of people all over Toronto. (His mom even posed for a photo with her German shepherd.) The project is still on-going with a lengthy wait-list, and Zach is excited to continue meeting people—and pets—around the city as he keeps shooting.

Well let me tell you, it was quite the pragmatic purchase. It has endless uses in my morning routine.

Such as making the bed:

Making toast:

Getting things off high shelves:

Making coffee:

Reaching the remote when it’s too far away:

And assisting me when I ran out of toilet paper:

I don’t know how I survived life without it.

Uruk-Hai Scimitar by Zoë [tumblr] 

“A woman saying yes to a date with a man is literally insane, and ill-advised, and the whole species’ existence counts on them doing it. I don’t know how women still go out with guys when you consider that there’s no greater threat to women than men. We’re the number one threat to women! Globally and historically, we’re the number one cause of injury and mayhem to women, we’re the worst thing that ever happens to them. If you’re a guy, try to imagine that you could only date a half-bear, half-lion, like, “Ugh, I hope this one’s nice.””

- Louis C.K. (via unignorable)

wasp33:

There are two types of squirrels

lolzpicx:

Somewhere a graphic artist is giggling. 

 

Submitted by: Unknown

Tagged: sexytime , reptiles , tap that , iguana , dating fails , g rated Share on Facebook

(via Three Panel Soul)

GTFO: A Film About Women in Gaming by Shannon Sun-Higginson — Kickstarter:

What is GTFO?

I am just a casual gamer, so I was shocked about a year ago when a friend told me about the abuse that many female gamers and other industry figures endure on a daily basis. I immediately began researching and filming this documentary, titled “GTFO” in reference to the exclusionary response that many women encounter while gaming.

Of course not all gamers are trolls or abusers — many are kind, supportive, and equally disgusted by this type of behavior. But the fact remains that this is a real problem, and it’s time that the non-gaming public know about it. Nobody should have to endure being called a derogatory term simply because of their gender (or race, religion, or sexual orientation, for that matter). It is not only offensive to the victim and detrimental to the public image of the industry, but it also discourages countless women who want to be part of new and creative media.

The purpose of this documentary is to reveal the experiences of women in the gaming world, both good and bad, as well as to provide steps we can take to change the environment for the better. I have already filmed interviews, tournaments, classes, and conventions, but I need your help funding the remainder of the project.

Whether you’re a hardcore gamer or an outsider like myself, please consider pledging even a few bucks to this project, and help make the world a better place for gamers everywhere. If you can’t make a financial donation, I am also looking for contacts within the industry, so if you or someone you know would like to become a part of this project please feel free to get in touch with me.

Not long ago, Brian Kennish helpted to write the software that serves advertisements around the Web. First at DoubleClick and later at Google, he helped build ad servers and the developer APIs that link advertisers and ad products.

But the more he worked on ad technology, the more concerned he grew about the data advertisers were collecting about him. "I realized that despite having all of this insider knowledge, I myself had absolutely no idea where all my data was going and what was being done with it," Kennish said. "That was a pretty scary proposition."

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"Despite having all of this insider knowledge, I myself had absolutely no idea where all my data was going"

IN 2010, Kennish quit Google and started down the path that would lead him to create Disconnect the following year. This week the Palo Alto startup released version 2.0 of its browser extension for Chrome and Firefox, which thwarts companies that profit from identifying consumers through "retargeting." Unlike traditional ad-blocking software, Disconnect permits ads to load in most cases while blocking companies from tracking consumers around the Web.

Retargeting is the reason that you see an ad for Nordstrom on Facebook the day after you searched for it on Google. But not every case of tracking is so benign — and as tracking methods become increasingly sophisticated, it's becoming more difficult for the average person to understand what data companies are collecting about them and how it is being used.

"It turns out there are literally thousands of companies and organizations collecting what I would consider very personal data — the history of the pages that we browse and our search history," Kennish said. "And so today my data is in the hands of roughly 2,000 different companies, and who knows what is being done with it? It's very difficult to even tell. We could pore over the privacy policies of these 2,000 companies to try to figure out what they're doing, but it's quite a stretch to be able to have any idea what our data is being used for."

Disconnect, like similar software from Abine and Ghostery, aims to give consumers more control over the data they share. After the extension is installed, an icon in the browser lets users adjust which advertisers and tracking companies can access their data. Disconnect sorts the requests into categories like advertising, analytics, and social. Eliminating them is as simple as clicking a check box.

With the second version of the app, Disconnect engineers have rewritten the software engine with a focus on speeding up load times by filtering out unwanted adware faster. After benchmarking the top 1,000 sites, Kennish claims that Disconnect makes the average page load 27 percent faster and require 17 percent less bandwidth. The company also beefed up its list of third-party tracking sites, and now says its database is the largest in the world. It also updates automatically every week with any new tracking companies discovered by the Disconnect crawler.

Disconnect claims to make the average page load 27 percent faster and require 17 percent less bandwidth

The update also shows Disconnect dipping its toes into security, incorporating potential malware sources into its filtering database and including a default setting to force encryption when browsing popular sites over Wi-Fi.

Perhaps most interestingly, Disconnect 2 is launching as pay-what-you-want software. When you go to download the extension Disconnect asks you to contribute, but you can also choose to pay nothing.

"We're sensitive about trying not to create a class system around privacy and security," Kennish said. "Outright charging for an extension when not all users can afford to pay a fixed price didn't feel right for us."

The emergence of Do Not Track legislation and browser settings over the past year has brought new attention to retargeting and the growing amount of data that advertisers are collecting. But the companies themselves are still largely invisible. If nothing else, software like Disconnect makes their work more transparent.

"Over the last couple years, certainly, I think the general public has become more attuned to this issue," Kennish said. "But still it's largely arcane. And the more you know about it, the more troubling it becomes. "

• Via The New York Times
• Related Items web privacy disconnect do not track ghostery abine Facebook Google

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