blithefool:

I blame Quire.

ucarim:

Ms. Marvel #07 by Jamie McKelvie

Brandalism

Germany’s famously frugal consumers are giving McDonald’s fits.

The fast food behemoth’s operations in Europe’s largest economy were a dog during the first quarter. And a root cause of sluggish sales in Deutschland seems to disarmingly simple: McDonald’s took away Germany’s €1 cheeseburger. And Germany was not happy about it.

The company made the move back in November of 2012, after having held the price of a McDonald’s cheeseburger at €1 for nearly a decade. German customers, the chain’s Europe president told investors at a meeting late last year, “certainly punished us in a very severe way.”

McDonald’s has been struggling to regain the trust of German customers ever since. In a meeting with analysts May 16, McDonald’s executives explained that they saw an immediate drop in the German customers that came in for the €1 cheeseburger, then added on more profitable items such as fries and drinks. McDonald’s has sought to entice these customers back with other promotions, to no avail. “I would tell you that nothing has resonated as well as the €1 cheeseburger,” said Doug Goare, president of the company’s Europe division.

The challenge for McDonald’s in Germany speaks to the broader difficulties facing global corporations as they try to fine-tune consumer offerings across borders and cultures. The €1 cheeseburger fiasco has reinforced a core lesson in dealing with German customers.

“The German consumer tends to be very frugal,” Goare told analysts in the May 16 meeting. “And I would say they don’t have the same appetite for great-tasting food—I’ll get in trouble saying this—that the French have, okay? Food is a staple. And so there is a tremendous attention to value for the money.”

Behold, the Microsoft iPad.

Andrew Cunningham

By most accounts, Microsoft was supposed to announce an 8-inch Surface Mini tablet yesterday. This gadget, which would reportedly have used a Qualcomm chip and slotted in below the Surface 2 in Microsoft's tablet lineup, was apparently shelved at the last minute. Most of the outlets that predicted that tablet was coming have since posted a number of different explanations to explain its absence.

Whatever the reason, the upshot is that we have no small Surface tablet. This leaves Windows users who want a smaller device a few different options: they can pick something from one of Microsoft's OEM partners, like the generally solid Lenovo Thinkpad 8 or Dell Venue 8 Pro. But those tablets don't have the third-party app ecosystems that iOS and Android sport, and the benefit of the Windows desktop on a computer with such a small display is dubious at best.

If you want a small-screened tablet with robust third-party application ecosystem, a touch-enabled version of Office, and the ability to connect to and use most of Microsoft's services, your way forward is clear: you should get an iPad mini.

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Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New paper: "Your Secret Stingray's No Secret Anymore: The Vanishing Government Monopoly Over Cell Phone Surveillance and its Impact on National Security and Consumer Privacy," by Christopher Soghoian and Stephanie K. Pell:

Abstract: In the early 1990s, off-the-shelf radio scanners allowed any snoop or criminal to eavesdrop on the calls of nearby cell phone users. These radio scanners could intercept calls due to a significant security vulnerability inherent in then widely used analog cellular phone networks: calls were not encrypted as they traveled over the air. In response to this problem, Congress, rather than exploring options for improving the security of cellular networks, merely outlawed the sale of new radio scanners capable of intercepting cellular signals, which did nothing to prevent the potential use of millions of existing interception-capable radio scanners. Now, nearly two decades after Congress passed legislation intended to protect analog phones from interception by radio scanners, we are rapidly approaching a future with a widespread interception threat to cellular communications very reminiscent of the one scanner posed in the 1990s, but with a much larger range of public and private actors with access to a much more powerful cellular interception technology that exploits security vulnerabilities in our digital cellular networks.

This Article illustrates how cellular interception capabilities and technology have become, for better or worse, globalized and democratized, placing Americans' cellular communications at risk of interception from foreign governments, criminals, the tabloid press and virtually anyone else with sufficient motive to capture cellular content in transmission. Notwithstanding this risk, US government agencies continue to treat practically everything about this cellular interception technology, as a closely guarded, necessarily secret "source and method," shrouding the technical capabilities and limitations of the equipment from public discussion, even keeping its very name from public disclosure. This "source and method" argument, although questionable in its efficacy, is invoked to protect law enforcement agencies' own use of this technology while allegedly preventing criminal suspects from learning how to evade surveillance.

This Article argues that current policy makers should not follow the worn path of attempting to outlaw technology while ignoring, and thus perpetuating, the significant vulnerabilities in cellular communications networks on which it depends. Moreover, lawmakers must resist the reflexive temptation to elevate the sustainability of a particular surveillance technology over the need to curtail the general threat that technology poses to the security of cellular networks. Instead, with regard to this destabilizing, unmediated technology and its increasing general availability at decreasing prices, Congress and appropriate regulators should address these network vulnerabilities directly and thoroughly as part of the larger cyber security policy debates and solutions now under consideration. This Article concludes by offering the beginnings of a way forward for legislators to address digital cellular network vulnerabilities with a new sense of urgency appropriate to the current communications security environment.

Characters and story

Andy – Mark’s faithful Saint Bernard. Neutered 2000.

Link

Samuel C. Spitale (a.k.a. “C-SPIT”) has created a great movie trailer that imagines what George Lucas‘ 1983 epic space opera film, Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, might have looked like if it ended up being directed by David Lynch.

In 1981 George Lucas approached David Lynch to direct the final installment of the STAR WARS trilogy. For years fans of Lynch and Lucas have wondered what that surreal vision would look like. Now we finally know…. in David Lynch’s RETURN OF THE JEDI.

via Welcome to Twin Peaks, Nerdcore

"Yes. To you, Baldrick, the Renaissance was just something that happened to other people, wasn’t it?"

Ever wonder what a text adventure game made by Adventure Time and Bravest Warriors creator Pendleton Ward would look like? He's making (and illustrating) one right now—and you can play along on Twitter.

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If you're going to do it right, don't do it by making Nashville first, or ever ahead of Memphis. It's like we have to tell you how to do this, Travel and Leisure, since you made such a hash of your list you put Kansas City ahead of Austin, an act of such naked madness you'd be jailed in another century for even saying it. You wanna know how to do it properly, T&L?

You name the best fifty barbecue joints in the world and don't name a single one outside the state of Texas.

Amateurs. Rank damn amateurs, Travel and Leisure, every last one of you.

Concerthotels.com has put together a neat interactive showcasing the (in-studio) vocal ranges of over 7o famous figures. The top of the list is above. Axl Rose is your surprising victor, but the high notes are the crowd-pleasers, and here, Mariah Carey—with her insane G7—stands alone.

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The moves come as part of the network's effort to close this year's $7 million budget gap. Tell Me More host Michel Martin will remain with NPR.

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If you have an eBay account, it's time to change your password. The company released a statement today saying their internal and customer databases were compromised earlier this year, and starting today they'll prompt everyone to change their passwords.

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http://lavabit.com/

Sunday in the park with ゴジラ