Well, the best show on CBS just got even better: When Sarah Shahi left the show in the middle of season four it was for an unspecified period of maternity leave. But she’ll be back as a regular for season five — which may very well be the show’s last.
Self-confessed “aspiring geek” Ben Millam decided his cat would be more challenged if it hunted for its dinner. Understandably not wanting to hide cat food around the house, he instead trained the cat to hunt for wiffle balls which contain an RFID chip. When the cat drops the balls into a bowl, they roll past an RFID reader which, via an Arduino computer, dispenses a portion of food.
Whether you’re grabbing a drink at a party, a barbecue, or in the office break room, this simple plastic cup insulation trick can keep your drink’s temperature exactly how you want it, for longer.
This is why we can’t have nice things. On Saturday, vandals in Philadelphia destroyed a hitchhiking robot from Canada named HitchBot, two weeks into its U.S. trip. Designed as a social experiment, HitchBot could talk to humans and upload photos to social media. If you found it, HitchBot would tell you where it wanted to go and ask for a ride. Worry not though, HitchBot may get a happy ending.
I could do a long introduction to Jim C. Hines‘ Big Idea piece on his novel Fable: Blood of Heroes, based on the popular series of games. Instead I will simply say, with some wonder: It has armored chickens in it. I’ll let Jim handle the rest.
JIM C. HINES:
Albion is a land with a long history, developed over the course of the Fable trilogy of games. The forthcoming Fable Legends is set several hundred years before the first game, during a time of great change.
As it turns out, human beings—and nonhuman beings, for that matter—don’t always handle change well.
When I sat down to write Blood of Heroes, the companion novel for Fable Legends, my job was to tell an original story introducing new Heroes in a much older Albion, and to do so in a way that experienced Fable players, players of Fable Legends, and readers utterly new to the franchise could all appreciate and enjoy. There’s plenty of action, battles with ghosts and redcaps and armored chickens, and a bit of political absurdity, all part of a larger scheme by a villain with major dental issues, but underlying everything is the tension of societal change.
The average citizen of Albion might live their entire life without ever venturing beyond the boundaries of their village. It’s dangerous out there in the wilderness! As one villager correctly notes, “Did you know that nearly a hundred percent of forest-related deaths take place outside of town?”
The average citizen of Albion isn’t terribly bright…
Into this world come men and women with mythical powers. Heroes, or so they claim. But what happens when ordinary, everyday townsfolk encounter such people for the first time? How do those in power respond? And why is it that every time a Hero comes along, chaos and property damage soon follow?
As an old evil awakens and begins to spread its influence, a would-be king sees these Heroes as an opportunity to make a name for himself, and he’ll be damned if he lets a minor inconvenience like his untimely death get in the way of his grand vision. A nearby mayor sees only a threat to his power. Will the people really accept him as their leader when there are others with so much more strength and power and magic?
Others simply refuse to believe. “Heroes? Pah. Nothing but a bedtime story, a fantasy. Like dragons and hygiene. We don’t want none of that stuff around these parts.”
So not only did my protagonists have to fight bad guys, they also had to navigate a society that was completely at odds over how to deal with them. One villager might denounce them as frauds, while the next becomes an instant and hardcore fanboy: “Excuse me, Mister Sterling, sir? Would you mind autographing my pig? It’s for my wife. She’s a big fan. Her name’s Bacon. The pig, I mean. Not my wife.”
The same conflicts play out within the protagonists themselves. They struggle to understand their powers and abilities, to figure out who they are and where they belong. Some, like the aforementioned Sterling, believe it’s their destiny to save the land and receive the glory and rewards that are their due. (And if said rewards happen to include a romp with the best-looking man or woman in town—or both!—so much the better.) Others struggle to hold on to their idealism in the face of doubt and cynicism and an unusually large number of things trying to kill them. Then there are those who are just in it for the gold to pay off their bar tab.
In some ways, it’s a lot like the writing community…
Blood of Heroes shows a world in flux. Albion has emerged from what’s known as The Pitch Black Ages (like the Dark Ages, only much, much darker), and is moving toward an Age of Heroes. In the long run, this could be a very good thing, at least for those who survive.
In the short term, it’s gonna be loud, messy, and ugly, full of backstabbing and nastiness and a disconcerting number of chickens.
If I did my job right, it should also be a great deal of fun.
Raggedrabbit has posted a series of really cool Luke Skywalker cards that were signed by Mark Hamill on Imgur, and and you have to admit, the man really knows how to write autographs!
Tonight I decided to walk home, a further distance than I normally would. The bus wasn’t coming, the weather was nice, and I thought the exercise would feel good. I turned on my music, but kept my headphones down around my neck so that they wouldn’t impede my ability to hear what was going on around me. I stayed in fairly populated, well-lit areas. I kept my shoulders back and my chin up so that I looked confident. I put my keys in my fist so that they would be out and ready if I needed to slash or punch anyone with them. I looked around frequently to keep an eye on any changes in my surroundings. I slowed down and veered to avoid any alcoves or darkened areas where someone had the potential to be hiding. I looked out for anyone in my vicinity and made a quick judgment of how easily they could overpower me, how likely I was to outrun them. I listened hard for new footsteps. I made close note of escape routes.
I spent the entirety of my pleasant walk home assessing my risk of being raped, robbed, or murdered. It bugs me that I found this necessary. But the thing that bugs me the most is knowing that there will be people who read this who think, “she’s being crazy/melodramatic/paranoid,” and they are almost certainly the same people who, if something terrible HAD happened to me on my walk, would think, “well, what did she expect to happen” or “she should have been more careful” or “she deserved it.”
OnePlus 2 har efter en tids upptakt presenterats av den unga kinesiska tillverkaren. Vi kastar oss direkt på de officiella specifikationerna som först och främst består av en 5,5 tum stor LCD-panel (in-cell LCD) med 1920 x 1080 pixlar. Skärmen skyddas av Gorilla Glass men OnePlus skriver inte vilken version som används.
Precis som företaget berättat tidigare har OnePlus 2 utrustats med chippet Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 (v2.1) som den här gången arbetar i 1,8GHz. Telefonen säljs i olika versioner – en variant med 4GB RAM och 64GB lagring och en modell med 3GB RAM och 16GB lagring. Arbetsminnet är av typen LPDDR4 och företaget använder eMMC 5.0 för lagringsutrymmet.
OnePlus 2 erbjuder vidare en aktiv fingeravtrycksläsare vilken placerats i en oval hemknapp under skärmen. Hårdvaran inkluderar även LTE, en 13MP-kamera (f/2,0), en främre 5MP-kamera, dubbla SIM-kortsplatser (nano), Bluetooth 4.1 och bakåtriktade högtalare. Batteriet som får allt att vakna till liv är väl tilltaget med sina 3300mAh.
Konstruktionen har metallramar och mäter 151,8 x 74,9 x 9,85 millimeter med en vikt på 175 gram. Det innebär att OnePlus 2 är marginellt smalare och lägre än föregångaren, men samtidigt snäppet tjockare och 13 gram tyngre. Bakstycket är löstagbart (StyleSwap) så kunder kan själva växla mellan olika material och färgval, vilket illustreras i galleriet nedan.
Utöver volym- och strömknappar har telefonen ett särskilt fysiskt reglage för att växla mellan aviseringslägen. Användare kan genom knappen släppa fram alla aviseringar, endast de med hög prioritet, eller välja att blockera alla aviseringsljud.
OnePlus har tidigt anammat USB Type-C som bland annat innebär betydligt smidigare kabelanslutning. Tyvärr verkar det tillskottet vara anledningen till att OnePlus 2 saknar alla former av snabbladdning, som Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0. En fulladdning tar cirka 3,5 timmar. Telefonen har heller inte stöd för trådlös laddning och NFC har prioriterats bort eftersom finessen ”inte användes” i föregångaren.
Tillverkaren har avslutat sitt samarbete med amerikanska utvecklaren Cyanogen. Nya mobilen kör därför OnePlus egna gränssnitt Oxygen OS som baseras på Android 5.1.1. Systemet är troget Googles designvision och erbjuder bland annat ett par anpassningsfunktioner som inte finns i original-Android. En annan finess är manuell kontroll över appars systemtillåtelser, något som finns inbyggt i kommande Android M. Tangentbordet består rätt och slätt av SwiftKey.
OnePlus 2 med 64GB lagring och 4GB RAM kostar 3799 kronor, medan modellen med 16GB lagring och 3GB RAM går på 3199 kronor. 64GB-modellen börjar levereras 11:e augusti. För att kunna beställa OnePlus 2 krävs en inbjudan.
George R.R. Martin knows villains. In fact, it could be argued the villains he created for his Song of Ice and Fire series are some of the most despicable and complex villains in literature. Recently, the author went on a tirade of sorts on his Live Blog, expressing his distaste for what he calls the “Marvel movie trope where the bad guy has the same powers as the hero.”
Martin, a self-professed Marvel fanboy who traces his devotion all the way back to the Merry Marvel Marching Society, wrote a favorable review of Marvel’s Ant-Man before letting loose with his less complimentary thoughts on villains in the Marvel universe.
I am tired of this Marvel movie trope where the bad guy has the same powers as the hero. The Hulk fought the Abomination, who is just a bad Hulk. Spider-Man fights Venom, who is just a bad Spider-Man. Iron Man fights Ironmonger, a bad Iron Man. Yawn. I want more films where the hero and the villain have wildly different powers. That makes the action much more interesting.
George has a point here, and as a Marvel fanboy myself, I completely agree. A lot of these films do indeed feature villains with the kinds of powers Martin objects to. However, the Marvel Universe movies have proven wildly popular, and there’s something to be said for continuing with a successful formula.
And here’s where the world of Westeros diverges from the world of Marvel. In Martin’s story, the bad guys seem to always win. Ramsay Bolton can flay, torture, and rape anyone he pleases without so much as a slap on the wrist…yet. With Marvel, the villains may obtain super-human powers, but the heroes will always stop them, and they do it within the confines of a two-hour film or short series run of a comic book.
So, while I agree with George on the tropish nature of villains in the Marvel universe, I don’t think comparing those villains to ones menacing Westeros is entirely fair.
by Darren Orf on Gizmodo, shared by Whitson Gordon to Lifehacker
The best defense against any of your gadgets becoming flooded with malware has always been personal vigilance. “Hmm, this app looks sketchy and is from a third-party app store I’ve never heard of. NOPE!” But a new vulnerability, discovered by security experts at Zimperium, can attack your phone with just a text.
De som är intresserade av att köpa OnePlus 2 kan nu ställa sig i kö för att i sinom tid få möjligheten att lägga en beställning. Genom att besöka OnePlus.net, gå till botten av sidan och skriva in din e-postadress i textfältet kommer du ha ”en chans” att få en överbliven inbjudan, vilket inte låter särskilt betryggande.
Efter att potentiella kunder fått en inbjudan har de 24 timmar på sig att använda den. De som lagt en beställning kommer i sin tur få inbjudningskoder att dela ut. Enligt hemsidan, som är på svenska, levereras i regel OnePlus 2 inom tre veckor efter att en beställning genomförts.
OnePlus 2 presenteras i morgon då vi återkommer med all officiell information.
"Minns du när du låg och läste för mig en gång, och du var jättetrött och irriterad och då läste du så här, helt sur:
'Och sedan dog Ior. The End. Nä, jag bara skojade.'
Minns du det mamma?"
Jag (chockad, men med ett svagt, grumligt minne av detta): "Nää, sa jag verkligen så? Det är ju hemskt, förlåt mig! Jag vet inte vad som kan ha flugit i mig!"
Lilla F: "Det är OK mamma. Det var faktiskt det roligaste du någonsin har sagt."
