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Jeff Vogel on what it’s like to put yourself out there, and what happened to Flappy Bird:

Dong Nguyen quit. A fortune coming through the door, and he walked away. …

Think about this. I mean you, personally. Think about what it would take to make you run from a gold mine like this. Really. Think about why someone would do this.

This is not about money.

Bingo.

Flappy Bird’s success was hilarious, but it also appears to be completely earned. I’ve read the posts suggesting he cheated at the ranks or reviews, but I haven’t seen any that supported those claims enough. Some guy in Vietnam made a primitive, crude, completely unoriginal game with cute, equally unoriginal artwork that was charming in its shittiness, frustratingly difficult, and inexplicably addictive.

A charming, comically shitty, addictive, accessible yet difficult, very casual, very quick to play, completely free game with no manipulative in-app purchases? Of course it succeeded in the App Store, fair and square.

Then so many people brutally harassed and abused the developer that he couldn’t take it anymore and deleted the number one app in the App Store in an attempt to do anything to make the abuse stop.

Flappy Bird was a cultural tragedy, and the tragedy has nothing to do with the game.

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Todos reclamando do calor, anotem aí: daqui uns meses vão estar reclamando do frio!

The post Toda hora tem um reclamando appeared first on DrPepper.com.br.

If you reeaaally cross us, we’ll wish tissues left in pockets in the washing machine on you. If you have any good ones, list’em here.

More love and zombies.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

This is the Israeli-TV source for the better-known U.S. show Homeland.  Homeland seems like and indeed is a completely implausible plot line, and that aside about a third of the episodes are downright awful.  It is saved by having one of the most incandescent romances in screen history, namely between Carrie and Brody, a passion which burns so brightly yet collapses immediately into the banal once any hint of peaceful calm is introduced, thereby necessitating certain plot twists which close out season three.

Prisoners of War [Hatufim] avoids these problems and takes away the romantic gloss.  The movie shows torture scenes repeatedly, and even if not with full realism it does not feel like typical Hollywood treatment.  There is more than one captive and the pace is slower and more contemplative.  Parents play a larger role in this story.  The “Carrie figure” has a smaller and less narcissistic profile.  The “Sol figure” remains Jewish.  I have heard Israelis object to what you might call an…unsentimental…portrait of the Israeli state in the series.  And “the first season of Hatufim was Israel’s highest-rated TV drama of all time.”

I recommend this show for most followers of intelligent TV.  You can watch on Hulu or order the discs, season two is on its way in the post from Israel.  The creator, Gideon Raff, plans to produce a season three as well.  Here is a NYT review of the Israeli series.  Here is a Guardian review.  Here is The New Yorker.  Here is a brief trailer.

Alvo de piadas e com imagem desgastada por causa do fraco desempenho e por outros motivos, o Hyundai Veloster deixa de ser importado para o mercado nacional por tempo indeterminado. O hatch com cara de cupê e proposta de esportivo sofreu muito no Brasil por utilizar o motor 1.6 16V de 128 cv, insuficientes para dar ao modelo a performance prometida até em seu nome.

Além disso, o preço alto cobrado pela importadora CAOA fez seu desempenho cair rapidamente no mercado. Dessa forma, a representante da Hyundai confirmou que a importação foi suspensa e que, inclusive, devido a remotorização no exterior, o veículo ainda tem seu futuro no Brasil indefinido.

Lá fora ele utiliza motores mais potentes, que aqui dariam ao consumidor aquilo que ele espera. Afinal, o Veloster revolucionou por ter três portas e um design bastante esportivo e exclusivo no segmento. Então, por que não trazer com um motor realmente condizente com a proposta? Elantra e i30 já foram remotorizados, inclusive com direito à tecnologia flex.

A noticia Hyundai Veloster ficará ausente do mercado por tempo indefinido foi publicada no site Notícias Automotivas - Carros.

Freshly Exhumed writes "Does publishing a hyperlink to freely available content amount to an illegal communication to the public and therefore a breach of creator's copyrights under European law? After examining a case referred to it by Sweden's Court of Appeal, the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled today that no, it does not. The Court found that 'In the circumstances of this case, it must be observed that making available the works concerned by means of a clickable link, such as that in the main proceedings, does not lead to the works in question being communicated to a new public.'" Reader Bart Smit points to the court's ruling.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tô aqui imaginando… na copa.

 

O post Mentirinhas #581 apareceu primeiro em Mentirinhas.

Se cada um de nós evitar alguns maus hábitos ao volante, o convívio nas ruas e estradas será mais seguro e menos estressante

Responding to the western campaign of "deliberate sabotage" in the media, Paul Sonne of WSJ reports, Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Kozak said, "We have surveillance video from the hotels that shows people turn on the shower, direct the nozzle at the wall and then leave the room for the whole day."

(Say What?!?!?!) 

Then an aide whisked Kozak away before he could answer any follow-up questions...

...former NSA operative John Schindler has some counter-surveillance advice for Sochi's shower users...  Shut door and run shower hot for 10 minutes. Clear spot on mirror is the cam. (more)

Click to enlarge.

We’re all trying to switch to local produce these days and for Londoners, it doesn’t get much more local than the 2½ acre farm growing fresh veggies right under their feet.

Growing leafy greens and herbs without any natural light 100 feet below the streets of central London in an abandoned air raid shelter is not your typical urban farming project, as you might have already concluded. The crazy idea came from two childhood friends who moved to the big city from the rural West Country of England and spent a lot of time arguing in the pub about the future of oil, energy, food and London. Richard Ballard and Steven Dring couldn’t get their minds off the fact that the population of their new city was going to increase by three million people within a decade, and it was this worrying little fact that got these two entrepreneurs out of the pub and into action.

All too aware that the only way to feed London’s growing population was to do it without using any carbon and eliminating dependence on fossil fuels, the pair came up with a creative prototype for feeding London in the future. And so the story of Zero Carbon Food (ZCF) was born.

“We ain’t flying salad from Kenya,” says the pair who plan to grow locally on a commercial scale, reducing CO2 by cutting out food miles.

But why underground…?

Above was the estate agent’s photograph of the South Clapham tunnels, which Steven assures were “a lot darker and dingier” when he first visited the site with a head torch stuck to his forehead two years ago.

Originally built as a WWII bomb shelter to protect Londoners from the worst excesses of the Blitz, there were plans in place to later convert the tunnel into an express Northern line tube service from Clapham to Camden town. While it appears to have made a very effective bomb shelter, the cash for the tunnel’s future in transport was never raised and the plans never materialised.

At the end of the war, London had a severe labor shortage and the tunnel found another use as temporary housing for the first large group of West Indian migrants promised work in the United Kingdom. In June 1948, 492 passengers from Jamaica arrived in England on the MV Empire Windrush.

Interestingly (especially for you Londoners reading), the decision to house the migrants in the tunnel would later shape the demographics of South London. The newcomers found work at the nearest labour exchange to their subterranean shelter and began settling in the districts of South London, which is how nearby Brixton and the surrounding areas came to be the heart of London’s Caribbean community. 

So remember that estate agent’s photograph we saw? Well this is how Steven and Rich actually found it more than 50 years after contributing to the cultural diversity of London.

And so again, it begs the question, why underground?!

Well for one, there isn’t exactly an abundance of space for urban farming floating around the London real estate market. Looking into redundant spaces 100 feet underground certainly saves on rent. In a tunnel that stays at a stable 60 degrees all year, heating and cooling costs are reduced too. But more importantly, the lack of natural light means you get to use LED lights powered by renewable energy. Even better, broccoli, pea shoots, rocket, basil and mustard leaf among other greens, can grow without pesticides thanks to the tunnel’s lack of airborne pests.

After a year of seemingly endless test phases with a veteran expert horticulturalist on board for the ride, Zero Carbon Food’s first brand Growing Underground is set to launch officially in March, selling produce to London’s supermarkets and restaurants.

The entrepreneurs also enlisted the help of Michelin-starred chef Michel Roux Jr (of London’s Le Gavroche restaurant), who has joined the company as a director.

The innovative entrepreneurs have now begun a crowd-funding campaign to complete the last leg of their journey and accelerate the development of the project. For these guys, Zero Carbon Food isn’t just a fun urban farming experiment– they want to reduce London’s carbon footprint in a big way. Imagine a hidden city-wide subterranean network of eco-farming. Now that’s what I call thinking for the future  …

Click here to view the embedded video.

Discover Zero Carbon Food and follow their progress on Facebook / Twitter

via FastcoExist

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Zothecula writes "A team of astronomers at The Australian National University working on a five-year project to produce the first comprehensive digital survey of the southern sky has discovered the oldest known star in the Universe. The star dates back 13.7 billion years, only shortly after the Big Bang itself. It's also nearby (at least, from a cosmological perspective) — about 6,000 light-years away. The star is notable for the very small amount of iron it contains (abstract). The lead researcher, Stefan Keller, said, 'To make a star like our Sun, you take the basic ingredients of hydrogen and helium from the Big Bang and add an enormous amount of iron – the equivalent of about 1,000 times the Earth's mass. To make this ancient star, you need no more than an Australia-sized asteroid of iron and lots of carbon. It's a very different recipe that tells us a lot about the nature of the first stars and how they died.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Americans have always had a strange fascination with astrology. First Lady Nancy Reagan famously employed the services of an astrologer after the assassination attempt on her husband. Now UPI reports that according to a new survey by the National Science Foundation, nearly half of all Americans say astrology is either 'very' or 'sort of' scientific. Younger respondents, in particular, were the least likely to regard astrology as unscientific, with 58% of 18 to 24 years olds saying that astrology is scientific (PDF). What's most alarming is that American attitudes about science are moving in the wrong direction. Skepticism of astrology hit an all-time high in 2004, when 66 percent of Americans said astrology was total nonsense. But each year, fewer and fewer respondents have dismissed the connections between star alignment and personality as bunk. Among respondents in the 25 — 44 age group 49% of respondents in the 2012 survey said astrology is either 'very scientific' or 'sort of scientific,' up from 36% in 2010. So what's behind this data? The lead author of the report chapter in question, public opinion specialist John Besley of Michigan State University, cautions that we should probably wait for further data 'to see if it's a real change' before speculating. But, he admits, the apparent increase in astrology belief 'popped out to me when I saw it.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Daniel_Stuckey writes "A business park in North Korea will soon have (limited) access to the Internet, according to news reports. The Register wrote that an industrial park in the Kaesong Industrial Region will house Internet-connected PCs by the first half of this year. The Daily NK explained that the first step to connectivity will be an Internet cafe with 20 computers but afterward company offices will also be connected. They quoted a spokesperson from the Ministry of Unification — a department of the South Korean government that works on unifying the two Koreas — as saying, 'We are planning to launch the basic level of Internet services at the Kaesong Industrial Complex starting in the first half of this year,' and adding, 'Officials and employees in the North's border city will be able to use most of the online services now available in South Korea.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Existem obras que nos marcam para o resto da vida. No meu caso, uma obra fundamental foi Logan's run (Fuga do século 23), um filme de 1976, dirigido por Michael Anderson, posteriormente transformado em série televisiva. Não lembro de ter visto ao filme, mas eu devorava a série todas as tardes e era muito raro perder um episódio.

Logan's run conta a história de uma cidade hermeticamente fechada onde as pessoas vivem para o prazer. Mas há um porém. Ao chegarem aos 30, todos precisam ser "renovados". A renovação acontece durante um evento chamado carrossel em que as pessoas, flutuando no ar, são atingidas por raios que supostamente teriam a capacidade de renová-los. Na verdade, as pessoas são mortas para dar lugar a crianças. 

Para cada criança que nasce, uma pessoa deve morrer. A estratégia é uma forma de controle populacional imposto pelas máquinas que governam a cidade e convencem os cidadãos de que 30 anos é idade máxima que se pode viver. Logan é um patrulheiro, uma das pessoas que perseguem e matam os que tentam fugir da renovação no carrossel.


Aí há algumas diferenças entre o filme e o seriado. No filme, Logan e uma jovem chamada Jéssica conseguem fugir, mas se deparam com um mundo destruído por uma guerra nuclear. Depois de muito caminharem, chegam em Washington, onde encontram um velho. Eles voltam para a cidade, que acaba sendo destruída e termina com os seus jovens habitantes ao redor do velho, admirados com um tipo de pessoa que nunca haviam visto. 

No seriado, Jéssica e Logan fogem ajudados por um androide e são perseguidos por patrulheiros. Em suas andanças à procura do Santuário, um local paradisíaco, onde as pessoas vivem felizes, sem terem de morrer aos 30 anos, eles se deparam com os mais diversos tipos de perigos, de uma sociedade religiosa fundamentalista a uma casa mal-assombrada (é, às vezes os roteiristas viajavam um pouco...). 

Minha idolatria pela série fez com que eu encontrasse uma ressonância em obras distópicas, como 1984, de George Orwell, Admirável Mundo Novo, de Adous Huxley e Farenheith 451, de Ray Bradbury e isso talvez explique porque eu gostei tanto desses livros. Em todos eles havia a concepção de uma sociedade despótica em que não eram as próprias pessoas que decidiam sobre seus destinos. 


Nesse sentido, Logan's run me ajudou a definir minha filosofia política. Eu percebi que os sistemas autoritários surgem geralmente respaldados pelos cidadãos comuns. Em Logan's run as próprias pessoas colocaram o controle nas mãos das máquinas, pois isso era mais cômodo, já que as máquinas providenciavam tudo que se necessitava, podendo as pessoas viverem apenas para o prazer. Em sociedades desse tipo, em que as pessoas colocam o controle de suas vidas nas mãos de outros, os que governam conseguem impor o que quiserem. Os habitantes da cidade dos Domos achavam que morrer aos trinta anos era algo absolutamente normal porque era isso que a as máquinas diziam. A figura dos patrulheiros também é interessante, pois embora também sejam vítimas desse sistema (também eles devem morrer aos 30 anos), eles o defendem com unhas e dentes. Tanto no filme quanto no seriado, Logan e Jéssica são perseguidos por um patrulheiro totalmente cego a tudo que vê, pois só consegue obedecer à sua programação. Da mesma forma, todo regime autoritário só existe porque tem à sua disposição a tigrada, aqueles que obedecem cegamente ao ditador, mesmo que sejam vítimas dele. 

Outro aspecto interessante é observar uma sociedade formada exclusivamente por jovens (há uma cena em que uma garotinha vê a personagem Jéssica, de 24 anos, e diz que ela é uma velha bonita) em um filme lançado no auge do movimento hippie.

No filme, as pessoas, quando querem sexo, entram num circuito que permite escolher qualquer outra pessoa que esteja no circuito (uma antecipação dos chats eróticos?), e há a loja do amor, onde qualquer um pode se relacionar com qualquer um. Ao fugirem, Jéssica e Logan redescobrem as sociedades antigas e as uniões estáveis e decidem que serão marido e mulher e terão filhos. Seria uma espécie de auto-crítica da geração do amor livre? Como um jovem refletindo sobre suas mais importantes questões, a série não dá respostas. Se no filme Jéssica e Logan tornam-se um casal (amável esposa, amável esposo), no seriado os dois fogem juntos, mas não fica clara a relação entre eles. Ou seja, a série é mais uma reflexão sobre um comportamento do que uma censura do mesmo. 

O filme também antecipa toda a discussão ecológica sobre o aquecimento global. Numa sociedade em que restauram poucos recursos naturais, a solução encontrada é o controle populacional e o reaproveitamento dos recursos (creio que esqueci de mencionar que as pessoas mortas no carrossel são secretamente transformadas em comida para os mais jovens). 

A presença do andróide REM também permite interpretações interessantes pois, embora Logan e Jéssica estejam fugindo da ditadura das máquinas, eles estão sendo ajudados por uma máquina. Seria o andróide um espião infiltrado entre eles apenas para destruir o santuário quando o encontrarem? A série nunca deixou isso claro, mas o fato deu origem a situações interessantes que quebram com o maniqueísmo: o amigo pode também ser o inimigo. Aquele que parece simpático pode ser a maior ameaça. 

O seriado nunca mostrou os personagens chegando ao santuário, o que foi uma decepção para alguns fãs. Mas, por outro lado, deixou em aberto a situação, permitindo que cada um visualize o santuário a seu modo. O santuário, assim, passou a significar menos um local e muito mais um sentimento de esperança de que o homem um dia consiga encontrar uma maneira de viver sem ser dominado por regimes autoritários, em que cada pessoa viva feliz, sendo responsável e livre para fazer suas próprias escolhas. 

Embora Logan's run tenha permanecido no limbo durante muitos anos, Hollywood redescobriu a história e tem se falado muito em uma refilmagem, inclusive com direção de Brian Singer (Superman). Espera-se que nessa nova versão a riqueza da história seja preservada, e que o filme não seja transformado em mais um filme em que a ação se sobrepõe à reflexão.

Horace Dediu:

On a yearly basis iTunes/Software/Services is nearly half of Google’s core business and growing slightly faster.

The iTunes “empire” of content and services would be ranked as number 130 in the Fortune 500 ranking of companies (slightly below Alcoa and above Eli Lilly).

Jay Yarow, Business Insider:

Barnes & Noble laid off its Nook hardware engineers, according to a source that tipped Business Insider.

The engineers were let go last Thursday, according to our source. This follows Barnes & Noble dismissing the VP of Hardware, Bill Saperstein in January.

The Nook was its answer to the Amazon’s Kindle. Barnes & Noble tried making a Nook e-reader, and a Nook tablet that competed with the iPad, and the Kindle Fire. It was a bold, and aggressive attempt to fend off the rise of Internet companies that were destroying booksellers.

Looks like it’s time for the Justice Department to go after Apple again.

I love you.

We all know one.

Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen has publicly spoken for the first time since pulling the popular game from the App Store in a new interview with Forbes. In the interview, Nguyen states that Flappy Bird was removed because it was becoming an "addictive product," going on to say that guilt and discomfort ultimately influenced his final decision to take the game down.

Flappy Bird was designed to play in a few minutes when you are relaxed,” says Dong Nguyen, in an exclusive interview, his first since he pulled the plug on the app. “But it happened to become an addictive product. I think it has become a problem. To solve that problem, it’s best to take down Flappy Bird. It’s gone forever.”

Nguyen added in the interview that he developed the game over the course of "two or three days" and said that Nintendo did not send him any legal threats over the game's similarities to the original "Super Mario Bros." title, corroborating a report from yesterday. The developer noted that he feels there was no mistake in removing the title from App Store, also saying that he will continue to develop games due to the confidence he gained after the success of Flappy Bird.

Before being taken down, Flappy Bird was the number one downloaded free app on Apple's App Store for almost a month, generating a reported $50,000/day in revenue from in-app ads. Nguyen had also previously expressed frustration at the attention he received during the game's sudden spike in popularity on his Twitter before announcing that he would remove it.

True…

As noted this morning, Apple has plans to open its first retail store in Brazil on Saturday, February 15. The store is located in the Village Mall luxury shopping center in Rio de Janeiro's famous Barra Da Tijuca borough.

Brazilian news site The Globe [Google Translation] had an opportunity to speak with Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer about the store opening, which has been in the works for several years.

The Village Mall in Rio
According to Oppenheimer, Brazil is an increasingly important market for Apple. The company first launched an online store in the country in 2009 and is "very excited" to bring a physical store to Brazil.

Brazil has been a tough market for Apple as prices on iOS devices in the country have been prohibitively high. Apple cut the price of the iPhone 4 and 4s in Brazil back in early 2013, and just recently announced plans to continue selling the low-cost iPhone 4.

The new Apple Store in Rio de Janeiro takes on a unique "pavilion" design with a single floor and a long, curved glass exterior, which Oppenheimer says is one of the few stores to have the design worldwide. The concept is based on two spaces, with the front dedicated to product testing and the back focusing on sales of accessories and services.

Apple recently opened a similar store in Palo Alto at the Stanford Mall. The one-story location features a glass-enclosed front room filled with iPads, iPhones, and MacBooks for people to test out along with a spacious back room for accessory sales, Workshops, and Genius Bar appointments.

In the interview, Oppenheimer also confirmed Apple was indeed aiming to open the first Brazilian Apple Store ahead of the FIFA World Cup, which will take place in Rio this summer, and ahead of the 2016 Olympics.

The first Brazilian Apple Store will open on Saturday, February 15, and Oppenheimer says there are already plans for additional retail stores in Brazil, where Apple sees "great opportunities." "We are already planning the opening of new stores in the country, continuing our investments in Brazil," he said.